Professor Robert Ralphs

Professor Robert Ralphs

Professor of Criminology and Social Policy

My profile

Biography

Rob is a Professor of Criminology and Social Policy. He has 15 years experience of research and lecturing in the areas of substance misuse, youth crime, violent crime, gangs, criminal justice policy and criminological theory.

Academic and professional qualifications

First class BSc (hons) degree in Sociology from the University of Salford in 1997.  He later studied at postgraduate level at the University of Manchester before obtaining his PhD from the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2005.

Consultancy and advisory roles

Rob is regularly asked to be an expert consultant and his consultancy work has included Gang, gun and knife related Consultancy for  Hackney Borough Council, Manchester City Council, the North West Development Agency the Scottish Government and other local authorities, concerned about violent offending, drug use and emerging gangs.

Community, charity and NGO links

Rob’s involvement in gang related work extends beyond his academic life and he is a Trustee of the charity Mothers Against Violence who work to reduce gang membership and related violent crime.  He was also a founder member and secretary of GMPs Trafford division Gun and Gang Independent Advisory Group and is involved in the Inter Community Defence Council which provides conflict mediation around gang related disputes and supports many other local community initiatives and individuals that work to tackle youth crime, substance use, and violent crime.  He has recently helped to set a ‘recovery in the community’ arm of Mothers Against Violence (MAV) which now works with problem drug users at various stages of recovery, vulnerable young sex workers in the city centre.  Together with fellow MAV members and partenr agencies such as the Angelus Foundation and North Base, he is working on developing a harm reduction and education package around legal highs.

Get in touch

0161 247 3014
316 Geoffrey Manton Building

Impact

His research into gangs has resulted in inputs into policy developments and think-tanks at local, national and international level.

The inside of a night club packed with people with their arms in the air.

Getting ahead of new drug trends

Researchers at Manchester Met have found a way to keep tabs on drugs trends and help protect communities.

Go to case study
A drug user rolling a joint

Reducing harm posed by new psychoactive substances

How researchers at Manchester Met have underpinned the city’s cross sector responses to new psychoactive substances through a pioneering detection system.

Go to case study

Teaching

Postgraduate teaching

Rob teaches in the areas of criminological theory, youth and crime, substance use and violent crime.  He has a particular expertise and knowledge in the fields of drug use (both problematic and recreational) and gangs and related violent crime, i.e. gun and knife crime and drugs.

He has a particular focus on youth and violence, teaching on units such as Crime and Violence, Contemporary Issues in Deviant Youth Lifestyles, Troubles of Youth, Youth Justice and Juvenile Delinquency and Managing Offenders in the Community.

Subject areas

Criminology

Supervision

He currently supervises both postgraduate and undergraduate students in research on alcohol, drugs, gangs, violent crime and youth justic policy.

Research outputs

Rob is particularly interested in two broad areas of research: drug use, gangs and (violent) youth crime.

Some of Rob’s recent research includes being the lead researcher on an ethnographic study of youth gangs, the £255,000 ESRC funded project Youth Gangs in an English City: Social Exclusion, Drugs and Violence. Articles from the research have been published in Children and Society(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1099-0860/homepage/youth_gangs_in_british_cities__research_informs_the_policy_response.htm), Research Ethics Review, the Journal of Youth Studies, and in a number of edited collections. A book based on this research ‘Youth Gangs in an English City’ is due for publication by Routledge in 2012.  Other major research projects have included the £233,000 ESRC funded project Governing Drug Related Crime in the Risk Society (Jan 2007-June2009). Publications based on this research have been published in the British Journal of Criminology and Drugscope with the related book: ‘Tough Choices: Drug policy and the risk-security nexus’ in press and due for publication with Oxford University Press in early 2012.  He has also been the lead researcher for the following research projects: exploring parents of ‘gang’ members support needs; ‘8 ‘til late’ mentoring evaluation; a local authority funded research project into the ‘extent and nature of violent gangs’; training ex-offenders in research methods and the UK Drug Policy Committee funded, ‘Barriers to Employment for (Ex)-Problematic Drug Users’.

Press and media

Media appearances or involvement

His knowledge and experience of gangs means that he is also regularly in demand for media interviews and comment on developing gang policy, violent incidents (e.g. the 2011 English riots and the 2011 coalition’s gang strategy).  Rob contributes to local, national and international media discussions on gangs.  His views have been sought by crime documentary teams (e.g. Discovery) SKY news, ITV, the BBC, the Guardian, The Independent and news agencies in Denmark, Germany and Australia where he has conducted various TV, radio, magazine and newspaper interviews.