Griffins People
Griffins Society Staff
Dr Kate Steward, Director
Peter Dunn, Incoming Director
Louise Clark, SWIP Project Manager
Kim Davis, Research & Information Officer
Griffins Society Council
Roma Hooper, Chair
Christina McComb, Hon. Treasurer
Joy Dalkin
Carol Hedderman
Jackie Lowthian
Liz Dibb
Paul Rock
Wendy Cranmer
Griffins Society Patrons
Angela Camber
Professor Frances Heidensohn
Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC
Griffins Society Staff
Dr Kate Steward was appointed as Director of the Griffins Society in October 2005 but her involvement dates back to 1998 when she participated in an evaluation of the hostels that the Society then ran. This study is now published under the title Ladies of Lost Causes. Kate has a long-standing interest in criminal justice research and completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2004 - Remanding Women: A Socio-legal Study of Magistrates’ Decision-Making.
Email: kate@thegriffinssociety.org
Peter Dunn will be taking over from Kate Steward as Director of the Society in January 2009. Peter qualified as a probation officer in 1984 with a Masters in Social Work from the London School of Economics. He worked as a probation officer in London, Bristol, and Reading; becoming a senior probation officer in 1993. He managed a probation hostel for four years, then a prison through-care and resettlement team. In 1999 Peter was appointed Policy Advisor with the Youth Justice Board where he was responsible for producing the first National Standards for Youth Justice. During this time he worked closely with the Prison Service to promote child-centred regimes in the juvenile secure estate.
In 2001 Peter went to work for Victim Support and in the following year he became Head of Research and Development at Victim Support’s National Office. Peter established Victim Support’s research strategy, and he set up research partnerships with other charities. His team were also responsible for disseminating all Victim Support’s national performance management data, for service standards and practice guidance, and for facilitating the work of Victim Support’s Diversity Council.
Peter left Victim Support in 2007 and since then he has been working on his PhD at the London School of Economics. His research is a sociological study of the effects of hate crime and the policing of it. He hopes to complete his PhD in 2009.
Peter is Chair of London’s LGBT community safety charity, Galop; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a member of the Home Office Race for Justice Advisory Group.
Email: peter@thegriffinssociety.org
Louise Clark joined the Griffins Society as a member of staff in 2007. She manages a project to raise awareness of the support needs of female sex workers, so that whilst they are in prison, staff can link them to appropriate services. The project, called SWIP (Sex Workers in Prison), is a 12 month pilot and follows on from research Louise conducted under the Griffins Society visiting fellow scheme. Prior to this, she worked for three years at a women's prison for NACRO, coordinating the voluntary sector services. This followed many years of support work with young homeless and as a housing worker, with a break to complete a degree in Interactive Arts. She would like to go on to work/study overseas, looking at the impact of neo-liberal policies on female street sex workers.
Email: louise@thegriffinssociety.org
Kim Davis became volunteer of the year in 2005, at the time she was working for Sova as BME advisor and Marketing officer. Kim started working for Sova in 2002 as a Peer Researcher for the Moving Mountains Report. At the time she was serving a 14 year sentence at HMP Send, in Surrey.
This was the first time Kim had embarked on a piece of research, even though she had worked with her peers for many years as a Listener and then became Co-ordinator for the Samaritans Listeners scheme. Kim found she had a passion for learning more about how she could assist her peers by supporting them in their resettlement period. Kim was a Peer Supporter for CARTS and also sat on Suicide Awareness and Racial Awareness Boards in different establishments through out her sentence.
Also in 2005 Kim left Sova and was successful in her application to become a PATH Yorkshire (positive action through housing) trainee. Her placement was a continuation of her voluntary work that she was doing with Sova and also Stonham (supported housing). After Kim’s traineeship Stonham offered Kim full time employment as a Development Researcher & Marketing Officer in their Sheffield and Leeds office.
In 2007 Kim was released from Askham Grange Prison and was transferred to Stonham's Head Office in London where she lives. Kim has spoken at a lot of events about her time in prison and also about how volunteering while in prison put her on the career path she is on now. Kim is passionate about helping women who have experienced the CJS and also about showing society as a whole that breaking the cycle of re-offending can be achieved with the right support, mentoring and guidance.
Email: kim@thegriffinssociety.org
Griffins Society Council
Roma Hooper was appointed as Chair of the Griffins Society in 2008. She became involved with the voluntary sector in 1979 when she joined Contact a Family as fundraiser and assistant director. In 1987, with a colleague, she established Hooper McMillan, a charity consultancy working with small grass root organisations. She has a first class honours degree in English and Sociology and completed her MSc in Criminal Justice Policy at the London School of Economics in 2001. During this time Roma became involved with Feltham Young Offenders as a volunteer. She is secretary of Friends of Feltham, helped to establish the UK's first prison radio station, a trustee of the Foundation Training Company, chairman of the trustees for Trailblazers, the UK's only prison mentoring scheme and a trustee of the Griffins Society, working on behalf of female offenders. She was appointed Feltham's first voluntary sector co-ordinator in 2001. Roma wrote the chapter on volunteering for Prisons and the Voluntary Sector - A Bridge into the Community published in 2002 which is the first joint academic enterprise between the Prison Service and the Voluntary Sector. In 2003, with a colleague, she established Hooper Walker, providing an advice service to both the Prison Service , the Voluntary and Corporate Sector. Roma has recently co-edited a Resource Pack to support and train volunteering in prisons.
Christina McComb, Treasurer, has a background in venture capital and private equity investment and fund management. Between 2003-2006, she was a director of the Shareholder Executive, an agency established by the Cabinet Office to manage the Government’s interests in public owned enterprises. She is currently Head of Equity and Commercialisation at Partnerships UK Plc.
Joy Dalkin joined the Probation Service in 1985 following a Short Service Commission in the Royal Air Force. Joy has worked for a number of Probation Areas including the Isle Of Man. She is currently seconded to the Home Office Adult Offenders and Rehabilitation Unit working on the policy and strategy for the implementation of the recommendations of the Social Exclusion Report. Prior to this secondment Joy was the Senior Probation Officer at Feltham YOI. Joy has had extensive involvement with Hostels,Young Offenders and Women Offenders. This has included developing and running specialist provision for women offenders.
Carol Hedderman, BA (Hons), M. Phil (Cantab), PhD (Cantab) was appointed Professor of Criminology at the University of Leicester in October 2004.
From 1986-1999 she worked in the Home Office Research and Statistics Directorate conducting and managing research which included projects on sentencers' decision-making, the sentencing of women, and the enforcement of community sentences, the treatment of mentally disordered and sex offenders. Between 1999 and 2002 she was Deputy Director of the Criminal Policy Research Unit at London Southbank University (now the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at Kings College London). During that time she managed projects on a range of topics including probation enforcement, dealing with domestic violence and evaluating projects to reduce burglary. She also served on the Parole Board during this period. Carol returned to the Home Office as an Assistant Director of the Home Office Research and Statistics Directorate in October 2002 where she had lead responsibility for statistics and research into concerning the management and impact of the prison and probation services.
Carol is currently conducting action research with the Together Women Projects in the North West, Yorkshire and Humberside.
Research Interests:
The effectiveness of sentencing; 'rational'approaches to sentencing; the comparative effectiveness of different approaches to enforcing court penalties; 'what works' in prison and probation; reconviction studies and the development of alternative measures of effectiveness; treatment of female offenders at different stages of the criminal justice system; domestic violence; rural crime.
Jackie Lowthian has worked for Nacro since 1987. Jackie has long been concerned with issues around gender inequality and has managed Nacro's services for women prisoners since 1989. She ran Nacro's Women Prisoners' Resource Centre, a resettlement advice project for women in custody, for ten years and has developed and delivered a number of other projects aimed at supporting women during custody and after release. More recently, Jackie has worked in partnership with the Prison Service on policy for women, and since 1999, she has focused on improving resettlement opportunities for women. Much of this work has involved promoting changes to tackle homelessness amongst women leaving prison. She has assisted the Prison Service with the creation of a National Resettlement Strategy for Women and is working with women's prisons nationally to help implement this strategy. In June 2001 Jackie chaired an international conference, New Responses to Women Who Break the Law. A book of the conference proceedings was published (edited by Professor Pat Carlen) and Jackie is one of ten contributors. She has written a number of articles on the subject of women's imprisonment, published in various professional journals, and recently wrote and presented Nacro's submission to the Commission on Women and Criminal Justice. In September 2003 Jackie gave a paper on The Detention and Criminalisation of Women Asylum Seekers and Refugees at an international conference in Bilbao, Women, Crime and Globalisation. Jackie is a member of the Fawcett Society Gender and Justice Policy Network and a lay member of HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
Liz Dibb has a background in education and training, having worked as a teacher and education adviser for 12 years in the UK and 5 years in Central Europe, training teachers and producing educational resource packs. She has had considerable experience of working in the voluntary sector, mostly as a freelance consultant, having worked in the HIV/AIDS field for 10 years, and for the past 6 years in the Criminal Justice field. Liz has an MSc in Strategic Training and Development, with a dissertation on the effect on families and children of having a family member in prison. She then worked as a consultant with Action for Prisoners’ Families on a research project with young people and on a school’s project. Liz now works as a training consultant for Clinks and was the co-author, with Roma Hooper, of ‘Volunteering in Prison’; and now runs ‘train the trainers’ courses based on the pack. She and Roma are currently developing a new pack ‘Volunteering with Offenders in the Community’. Liz is also a volunteer at HMP & YOI Feltham.
Paul Rock is Professor of Social Institutions at the London School of Economics (LSE). He took his first degree at the LSE and then a D.Phil. at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada; a Visiting Professor at a number of Canadian, Australian and American universities; a Fellow of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California; and a resident at the Rockefeller Foundation Centre at the Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
His interests focus on the development of criminal justice policies, particularly for victims of crime, but he has also published articles on criminological theory and the history of crime. His most recent books include The Social World of an English Crown Court (1993, Clarendon Press); Reconstructing a Women's Prison (1996, Clarendon Press); After Homicide: Practical and Political Responses to Bereavement (1998, Clarendon Press); (with David Downes) Understanding Deviance (fifth edition 2003, Oxford University Press); and Constructing Victims' Rights (September 2004, Clarendon Press). He is at present evaluating for the OCJR the introduction of victims’ advocates and family impact statements in the courts.
Griffins Society Patrons
Angela Camber has been a member of the Griffins Society since 1994 and was Chair from 1996 to 2007. Angela has done all manner of things within and around the criminal justice system over many years and still finds it all fascinating, stimulating and even at times, exciting! In particular, Angela is absolutely delighted that the Society is able to offer the Griffins Fellowships.
Angela's interest in public and voluntary service developed as a result of doing the Diploma in Social Policy and Administration. After the Diploma, Angela worked for many years as a local authority social worker and subsequently moved into the voluntary sector.
Angela has been a magistrate since 1978 and was apparently the youngest person to have been appointed. What a stupendous claim to fame!
Angela has been involved with the Probation Service since 1988 when she was elected to serve on what was the Middlesex Probation Committee in London. Angela became Chair of that Committee in 1997 and in 2000/01 chaired the amalgamation of the five former London Probation Services which resulted in the creation of the London Probation Area, the largest area within the new National Probation Service. Angela now serves on the new London Probation Board and is also a council member of Nacro.
Finally, to complete the picture, Angela is married to Richard, an art consultant, and they have three rather wonderful children, the youngest of whom are twins.
Professor Frances Heidensohn is Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of London. She taught at Goldsmiths College for many years. She has written and researched widely on gender, crime, justice, policing and comparative criminology; among her books are Women and Crime, Women in Control? The Role of Women in Law Enforcemen, Crime in Europe and Gender and Justice.
She has extensive experience of public service: she was Chair of a Health Authority for seven years has been a Commissioner for Judicial Appointments and is a member of the Sentencing Advisory Panel.
Frances wrote the Foreword of Judith Rumgay's book on the Griffins Society: Ladies of Lost Causes. Rehabilitation, Women Offenders and the Voluntary Sector and became a patron of the Griffins Society this year.
Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC, practises predominantly in the criminal law, undertaking leading work of all kinds. She also undertakes judicial review, public inquiries and sex discrimination work. She has acted in many of the prominent cases of the last decade including the Brighton Bombing Trial, Guildford Four Appeal, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy, the abduction of Baby Abbie Humphries and a number of key domestic violence cases. She is currently acting in cases connected to the recent wave of terrorism.
She is Chair of the Human Genetics Commission and a member of the World Bank Institute’s External Advisory Council and was recently appointed to the board of the British Museum. She stepped down as Chair of the British Council in July 2004 after completing six years. She was Chair of the Inquiry into Sudden Infant Death for the Royal Colleges of Pathologists and of Paediatrics, producing a protocol for the investigation of such deaths. She is the Chair of the Power Inquiry’s campaign, makeitanissue.org.uk, which calls for the next phase of constitutional reform to be a more inclusive, democratic process that involves ordinary citizens. She is the Chair of Arts and Business, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and a Member of the House of Lords speaking on issues of human rights and civil liberties.
A frequent broadcaster and journalist on law and women's rights. Her publications include the widely acclaimed Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice (Vintage, 1993) which has been fully updated and has been reissued in paperback, March 2005. Her new book Just Law: The Changing Face of Justice and Why It Matters to Us All (Chatto & Windus, 2004) was published in paperback, March 2005.