BSc Applied Psychology (Cardiff University)

Lecturer, Criminology


Room: Hel 214

Email: victoria.gadd@anglia.ac.uk

Telephone: 0845 196 2585
International: +44 1223 363271 ext 2585



Victoria Gadd's research activity

Victoria Gadd joined Anglia Ruskin University in September 2012 after two years working as a sessional lecturer for the University. Victoria joined Anglia from a research position at the Prisons Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University, where she had worked since 2005 on conceptualising and measuring prisoner and prison staff quality of life.

Victoria is currently finishing her PhD at the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University entitled 'Investigating effective and successful senior management teams in public sector prisons' she was funded by a CASE studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council and the Prison Service and is supervised by Professor Alison Liebling. The research focuses on the role and importance of the senior management team in developing and maintaining a 'high performing' prison. The research employed appreciative ethnographic methods and quantitative data collection in order to investigate the main research question: 'how does a good senior management team look, talk, act and think?' The synthesis of both observational and interview data in this study was crucial. Data collection took place at two distinct sites: HMP Guys Marsh in Dorset and HMP Wandsworth in London. Key themes include; The 'emotional' leadership of governors, levels of senior management optimism and resilience, senior managers expressions of care and authenticity, the difference between 'talk' and 'action' and its relationship to 'backstage' and 'frontstage' times and places, and impacts of communication and language.

Victoria has undertaken several consultancy projects for the Prison Service and Home Office using her prisons research experience and has held several training sessions for Prison Service colleagues. Victoria has also previously worked for a private social research organisation.

Victoria leads several modules; Retribution, restoration and rehabilitation, Trials and Errors, Youth Justice Controversies, and Researching Social Issues, and teaches on several others including Media and Crime and Postgraduate Research Methods.


Areas of supervision:

• Prisons and imprisonment
• Prison Management
• Prisoners and the experience of imprisonment
• Prison staff and the role of the prison officer
• Justice theory
• Research methods

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