Role
Simon is a Professor of Criminology. He works part-time in the areas of research development and staff mentoring.
Research areas
Simon's research interests are in the following areas:
- Policing, especially race relations within constabularies, the occupational culture of policing and aspects of policy making.
- Social theory, especially symbolic interactionism, theoretical perspectives on ethnicity and race, and sociological approaches to criminology.
- Human identity, especially the possibility of a normative understanding of identity.
Simon supervised a large number of doctoral students during his previous post, which was Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Sheffield. He has extensive research of analysing qualitative data from large scale studies. Although his main area of research activity has been the police and aspects of policing he is happy to consider the supervision of students in most areas of criminology, especially those with an interest in sociological approaches to criminological subjects.
External activity
- Academician of The Academy of Social Sciences
- Consultant to many police constabularies in the UK and beyond
- Former Chair of Nottinghamshire Police Authority and its Policing and Performance Committee
- Member of editorial board of The European Journal of Police Studies
- Visiting professor Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto
- Frequent contributor to national and local media
Sponsors and collaborators
Simon's doctoral research was the first study of the police occupational culture in the UK. Most of his other research has been about race relations within constabularies. It has been funded by the ESRC, the Home Office and other grant-giving bodies. Major projects have been about the recruitment of ethnic minority people into the police service, the employment experience of ethnic minority resigners from the police service and Black Police Associations. He has also researched and published about theories of race and ethnicity, the governance of the probation service and youth justice.