Dr Emma Watkins

Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology
Associate Professor in Criminology

Contact details

Twitter: @emmadwatkins

Address: School of Social Policy and Society
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Emma D. Watkins is an Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Birmingham, and Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology Research Lead. As an historical criminologist, Emma uses a social harm perspective in her work to explore the use of institutions and policy to control marginalised populations. Emma was awarded an AHRC Research, Development & Engagement Fellow (2023–2025) working on ‘Institutional Abuse: Reformatory Schools and the use of physical force’. Emma was awarded her PhD at the University of Liverpool. That thesis led to the monograph: Life Courses of Young Convicts Transported to Van Diemen’s Land. Out of that project came her work on pauper-emancipists and the criminalisation of poverty and her recent publication: Transportation, Post-Penal Identity and the Life Course (Emerald Publishing). Recently, she has also co-edited an historical criminological collection: Imperial Crime and Punishment: Approaches from Historical Criminology (Emerald Publishing).

Qualifications

2020: Fellow of the HEA
2014-2018: University of Liverpool - Doctor of Philosophy

Teaching

UG Criminology Programme modules including:

Histories of Criminology Justice & Empire
Violence in a Global Context
UG & PGT Dissertation Supervision

Postgraduate supervision

SEDA Accredited: Supervising Doctoral Research

Emma would be interested in supervising PhD theses related to Historical Criminology and Crime History in the following areas:

Institutional history
The history of the criminal justice system
Colonial history
Juvenile offending and justice
Nineteenth-century crime and punishment
Other related topics

Research

As an historical criminologist, Emma uses a social harm perspective in her work to explore the use of institutions and policy to control marginalised populations.

Emma was awarded an AHRC Research, Development & Engagement Fellowship 2023-25 working on ‘Institutional Abuse: Reformatory Schools and the use of physical force’. For more information see her blog.

Emma was awarded Australian Bicentennial Fellowship at Kings College London (2018), HEIF Small Grant Funding from Middlesex University (2019), and Southlands Methodist Trust Funding University of Roehampton (2020) to underpin her research into the life courses of pauper-emancipists. For more information, please see her blog and podcast.

After completing her PhD at the University of Liverpool, with the historical criminological project The Digital Panopticon, her thesis led to the monograph: Life Courses of Young Convicts Transported to Van Diemen's Land , and public facing publication Criminal Children

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Watkins, E 2025, Transportation, Post-Penal Identity and the Life Course: The Continued Control of Pauper-Emancipists. Emerald Advances in Historical Criminology, Emerald Publishing Limited. <https://bookstore.emerald.com/transportation-post-penal-identity-and-the-life-course-hb-9781804551981.html>

Watkins, E 2020, Life Courses of Young Convicts Transported to Van Diemen's Land. Bloomsbury.

Watkins, E & Godfrey, B 2018, Criminal Children: Researching Juvenile Offenders 1820-1920. Pen & Sword.

Article

Duan, B & Watkins, E 2025, 'Behind the ‘Brightness and Efficiency’: physical punishments and gendered discipline at Manchester Certified Industrial Schools – Girls’ Branch, 1900-1933', Gender and Justice. https://doi.org/10.1332/30333660Y2025D000000026

Watkins, E 2025, 'Shaping the Spirit: Girls Reformatory Schools in England, c.1854-1933', Crime, Histoire & Sociétés.

Watkins, E 2023, 'Path dependence and jumping tracks: Investigating institutional continuity and change across the Tasmanian convict and pauper systems', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice. https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12536

Lightowlers, C, Sanchez, J & Watkins, E 2022, 'Contextual culpability: How drinking and social context impact upon sentencing of violence', Criminology and Criminal Justice, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 442-461. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820972160

Watkins, E 2021, 'Young convicts and their vandemonian criminal careers', Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 23, pp. 87-102. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.210695971424043

Watkins, E 2018, 'Juvenile convicts and their colonial familial lives', History of the Family. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2017.1417882

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Watkins, ED 2025, Pauper-Emancipists: Poverty, Criminalisation and Control. in ED Watkins & E Bland (eds), Imperial Crime and Punishment: Approaches from Historical Criminology. Emerald Advances in Historical Criminology, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 11-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-230-220251002

Alker, Z & Watkins, E 2018, History, life course criminology and digital methods: new directions for conceptualizing juvenile justice in Europe. in Juvenile Justice in Europe: Past, Present and Future.

Watkins, E 2018, Transported Beyond the Seas: Criminal Juveniles. in Nineteenth Century Childhoods in Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives, Series: Childhood in the Past Vol 6 .

Chapter

Watkins, E 2025, Introduction. in ED Watkins & E Bland (eds), Imperial Crime and Punishment: Approaches from Historical Criminology. Emerald Advances in Historical Criminology, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-230-220251001

Book/Film/Article review

Watkins, E 2025, 'Book Review: Wayward girls in Victorian and Edwardian England by Tahaney Alghrani', Punishment and Society, vol. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745251344301

Watkins, E 2020, 'Book Review: Children’s voices from the past: new historical and interdisciplinary perspectives (eds.) Moruzi, K., Musgrove, N. & Leahy, C.', Childhood in the Past.

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