Dr Jude Towers

Dr Jude Towers is a Senior Lecturer in Policing. Since completing her PhD (Economic Inequality and Intimate Partner Violence against Women) in 2013, she has worked as a Senior Research Associate (Lancaster University), a Lecturer in Sociology (Lancaster University) and a Senior Lecturer in Policing (LJMU), before taking up a Senior Lectureship at Edge Hill in 2022. 

Jude’s research has been focused on the construction and use of data, with a series of projects and publications on the construction and use of data in the measurement of violence and its impact on academic knowledge, policy and practice. 

Jude’s teaching is increasingly focusing on research methods, research skills and research projects. She also has experience teaching: criminal justice, criminological theory, and violence. She is a Module Lead and has been a Programme Lead for PGT and UG programmes (LJMU).  

Jude’s research and teaching interests are coming together into a new focus around the pedagogy, utility, implementation and impact of research for police (for the act of policing; and for those who are/will be policing). This work draws on her teaching experience with UG and PGT policing students, supervision of PGRs, working with those who police, and her four-year experience as the Strand Lead for Training and Learning for the N8 Policing Research Partnership (2016-2020). 

Jude is also working on a couple of projects focused on the concept of "challenging justice", including the concepts of challenging the reality of justice and how challenging the concept of justice can be / is. This includes a project with an English police force looking at an out of court disposal scheme designed to divert those whose criminal offending is linked to their mental health away from the criminal justice system and into support services via a multiagency panel. 

Jude currently supervisors three PGRs who are investigating policing problems (domestic abuse / rape and sexual violence / big data crime detection). She has two completions (Dr Jessica Phoenix and Dr Elouise Davies). 

Jude is a CI on the UKRI funded Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network. 

Jude is an External Examiner for the BSc Professional Policing degree at UCL. 

• Pedagogy of and for policing research
• Construction and use of knowledge (data)
• Construction of knowledge creators 
• Measurement of social phenomena
• Concepts and challenges of justice (especially from policing perspectives)
• VAWGs.

Current Teaching

• LAW4016 Dissertation (LLM in International Cyber Regulation & Policy)
• LAW4010 Advanced Legal Research Methods (LLM in International Cyber Regulation & Policy)
• PLN3002 Police Research Report (BSc Professional Policing)
• PLN2006 Doing Police Research  (BSc Professional Policing)
• PLN1003 Criminal Justice (BSc Professional Policing)

Previous Teaching Experience

• Teaching and Learning Lead - Liverpool Centre for Advanced Policing Studies (LJMU)
• School of Justice Studies Teaching and Learning Coordinator (LJMU)
• APSS Faculty Education Committee (LJMU)
• Programme Lead MSc, BSc and BSHF in Policing and Cybercrime (LJMU)
• Module Lead Dissertation (PGT)
• Module Lead Advanced Research Skills (PGT)
• Module Lead Dissertation (UG)
• Module Lead Advanced Social Research Skills (UG)
• Module Lead EBP Project (UG) 
• Module Tutor Introduction to Criminology for Policing (UG)
• Module lead Violence and Society (UG)
• Module Lead Gender and Violence (PGT)
• Module Lead Making Research Count (PGT)
• External Advisor BSc Professional Policing University of Hull (2020)
• External Validator MSc Criminal Intelligence Analysis UCLAN (2018)