Profile

Professor John Pitts: MA PhD Dip Ed DipYW FRSA ,Director of the Vauxhall Centre for the Study of Crime

Teaching interests

I teach modules in Criminological Theory, Youth Justice, Comparative Youth Justice & Child Care Policy, Community Safety, Organised and Corporate Crime and Research Methods to undergraduate and postgraduate students pursuing Professional Doctorates in Youth Justice.

Research interests

My research interests concern youth crime and youth justice and I am currently researching armed youth gangs in East London and the use and impact of custodial and residential responses to children and young people who offend in Finland and England & Wales. 

I have written extensively about the politics, policy and practice of youth justice and changing patterns of youth offending in England and Wales.

I have presented papers on these issues at conferences in England, mainland Europe, The USA and China.

I am Visiting Professor at the East China University of Politics and law where I work with fellow academics, representatives of Save the Children Fund (China) and members of the Shanghai judiciary and the police to develop youth justice practices which accord with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I am an associate of the Rights Practice, a London-based NGO concerned with the rights of adults and children in China and an editorial adviser to Russell House Publishing.

I am working with several London local authorities on issues of young people, gangs and violent crime.

Publications

Books

• The Politics of Juvenile Crime, Sage Publications (1988)
• Working With Young Offenders, BASW/Macmillan (1990 & 1999)
• Developing Services for Young People in Crisis, (with J Dennington) Longman (1991),
• The Probation Handbook, (with B. Kroll, A Jones & A. Taylor)Longman (1992),
• Positive Child Protection: A View From Abroad, (with K Baistow, A Cooper and R Hetherington, A. Spriggs) Russell House Publishing (1995)
• Preventing School Bullying (with P. Smith) Home Office (1995)
• Probation Practice, Pitman (1995),
• Planning Safer Communities, (with A. Marlow) Russell House (1998)
• The Independent Effects of Permanent Exclusion from School on the Criminal Careers of Young Offenders, (with Berridge D. Brodie I, Porteous D. & Tarling R.)The London, Home Office
• Positive Residential Practice: Learning the Lessons of the 1990s. (with D. Crimmens) Russell House (2000)
• The New Politics of Youth Crime: Discipline or Solidarity Macmillan (2001/2^nd edition Russell House Publishing 2003)
• Crime Disorder and Community Safety, (with R. Matthews) Routledge, (2001)
• The Russell House Companion to Working with Young People, (with F Factor & V Chauchun) Russell House Publishing (2001)
• Reaching Socially Excluded Young People, (with D Crimmens, F Factor, T Jeffs, C Pugh, J Spence & P Turner) National Youth Agency, (2004)
• The Russell House Companion to Youth Justice, (with T Bateman) Russell House (2005)
• Reluctant Gangsters: The Changing Face of Youth Crime, Willen Publishing (2008).
• Young People Crime & Injustice (with Tim Bateman) Palgrave/Macmillan (forthcoming)

Journal Articles

• 1998 Rehabilitation, Recidivism and Realism: Evaluating Violence Reduction Programs in Prison, (with Matthews R.) The Prison Journal, Vol.78 No.4
• 1999 ‘Remember the Alamo’ Action Research and Crime Prevention in a High-Crime Neighbourhood (with Marlow A.) International Criminal Justice Review, Vol.9
• 2001 Young People Talking About Social Exclusion I, Social Work in Europe, Vol.8 No.1
• 2001 Young People Talking About Social Exclusion II, Social Work in Europe, Vol.8 No.2
• 2001 Korrectional Karaoke: New Labour and the Zombification of Youth Justice, Youth Justice, Vol.1 No.2
• 2002 Community Safety and the School, Community Safety Journal, Vol.1 No.1 June
• 2003 Community Safety and Detached and Outreach Youth Work, Community Safety Journal, Vol..1 No.2, Oct.
• 2003 Gangs, Guns and Ghettos: A View from Abroad, Community Safety Journal, Vol.2 No.2 June
• 2003 Changing Youth Justice, Youth Justice, Vol. 3 No.1
• 2004 What do we Want? Youth Justice, Vol. 3 No.3
• 2005 So What Does Work?, Community Safety Journal, Vol.4 No.2
• 2005 (with Porteous D.) ‘Nobody Should Feel Alone’ Re-introducing Socially Excluded, Cultural and Ethnic Minority Children and Young People to Educational and Vocational Opportunity, European Journal of Social Work Vol.8 Issue 4
• 2005 (with Kuula T) Incarcerating Children and Young People: An Anglo-Finnish Comparison, Youth Justice Vol.5 No.1
• 2005 No Boundaries - The Anti-Social Behaviour Industry and Young People, Community Safety Journal Vol.5 No.1
• 2006 (with Palmer S) Othering the Brothers: Black Youth, Racial Solidarity and Gun Crime, Youth & Policy No. 91, Spring
• 2007 (with Marlow A.) Citizen Response to Policing: An Evaluation of a Local Initiative, Community Safety Journal, Vol.6 Issue 3, July
• 2007 Pitts J. Who Cares What Works, Youth and Policy No. 95 Spring
• 2007 Pitts J. Action on Gang Crime: Recent Developments, Community Safety Journal, Vol.7, Issue 1, Feb.
• 2007 Pitts J. Describing & Defining Youth Gangs, Community Safety Journal Vol.7, Issue 1, Feb.
• 2008 Pitts J. Too Grand, Bland and Abstract: The Limitations of Youth Governance as an Explanatory Schema for Recent Developments in Policy and Practice with Socially Excluded Young People, Youth and Policy, No.99, Spring
• 2008 Pitts J. The Changing Shape of Youth Crime, Youth and Policy, No. 100, Summer /Autumn
• 2008 Pitts J. Youth Gangs in London, Safer Society, March
• 2009 Pitts J. Neither War Nor Peace, Safer Communities, Spring
• 2009 Pitts J. Youth Gangs, Ethnicity and the Politics of Estrangement Youth and Policy, No. 102, Spring

Editorial board membership

• Safer Communities (editor)
• Youth Justice
• Youth and Policy (Assoc. editor)
• Juvenile Justice Worldwide (UNESCO)

Contact details

Professor John Pitts
E: john.pitts@beds.ac.uk