Professor Lesley McMillan
Professor of Criminology and Sociology
Department of Social Sciences
Professor Lesley McMillan currently teaches on a number of modules. At undergraduate level she lead sthe Comparative Sociology: Intensive Programme module which is an honours-level module that incorporates an Erasmus Intensive Programme with a number of universities across Europe.
She also contributes to the Social Scientist in Society (third year) module which provides specialist research methods training to social science students. She has also designed, led and taught the specialist part of this module (Trimester B) for sociologists and criminologists.
She will also be teaching an honours-level module Victimology as part of the Criminology pathway on the BA Social Science from academic year 2014/15. She also contributes teaching to Sociology 1: An Introduction.
At postgraduate level, she co-leads and teaches the Contemporary Issues in Criminology module on the MSc Research Methods, and co-leads and teaches the Globalisation and Migration module on the MSc Citizenship and Human Rights.
She is currently supervising six PhD students on a variety of topics relating to crime and justice, including: policing rape; stalking; criminal justice policy transfer in relation to violence; police initiatives to tackle youth crime; the legal defences available to women who kill violent partners; and rape as a war crime.
She has previously supervised PhD students on topics including gender and migration, and vaccination and the public understanding of science and welcomes PhD enquiries in any area of my research interests.
She currently acts as Director of the master's programme in Research (Strategy) comprising the Certificate, Diploma and MSc in Research Methods in The Graduate School.
Her research interests surround gender inequality and crime and justice. In particular, she is interested in gendered and sexual violence and the statutory and non-statutory response to it. She is especially interested in the criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault and in particular: the post-assault processing of cases; the problem of attrition; perceptions, attitudes and practices of criminal justice personnel including police officers, prosecutors, forensic medics and judges; and medico-legal interventions in rape and sexual assault.
She has a general interest in violence and the criminal justice response to it, sexual victimisation particularly among university students, and a developing interest in missing persons. Selected publications and research grants are outlined below.