Skip to content
Profile icon

Lorraine Smith

Senior Lecturer

School of Social Sciences

Staff Group(s)
Psychology

Role

Lorraine Smith is a Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in psychology, specialising in forensic psychology.

She teaches predominantly on forensic psychology modules including the third year Psychopathology and Offending Behaviour module and on the MSc Forensic Psychology course. Lorraine predominantly utilises quantitative research methods and statistics, and as such, she teaches on the second year psychometrics research methods modules, as well as on the Advanced Experimental Statistics postgraduate module. She also supervises both undergraduate and masters research projects which focus on forensic psychology and mental health.

Career overview

Lorraine completed her Undergraduate, Masters and PhD at NTU and has been a member of the Sexual Offences Crime and Misconduct Research Unit (SOCAMRU) at NTU since starting her PhD in 2011. Prior to starting her MSc in Forensic Psychology Lorraine was a secondary school Maths teacher and has also worked in a behaviour support unit of a school.  Lorraine has worked closely with the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), developing and validating assessment tools for male prisoners with an Intellectual Disability (ID). She is now branching out this work into secure healthcare settings and has developed links with St Andrews.

Research areas

Lorraine is a member of the Sexual Offences Crime and Misconduct Research Unit (SOCAMRU) and is involved in research focussing on Intellectual Disabled (ID) prisoners, specifically the assessment of their ID and their experiences of prison life.

Her research work and interests include:

  • The assessment of ID in the CJS – both male and female
  • ID assessment in secure settings
  • Prisoners experience of prison life
  • Adaptive functioning within the CJS
  • Rape myths

Offender rehabilitation, resettlement and desistance

External activity

Research collaborations with the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), HMP Whatton, HMP Full Sutton and St Andrews.

Sponsors and collaborators

Research collaborations with:

  • HMP Whatton
  • HMP Full Sutton
  • National Offender Management Service
  • Ministry of Justice
  • St Andrews