Andy Williams

I am currently a Principal Lecturer at ICJS having previously come from the University of Reading (1999 to 2003) where I taught modules in Criminology, Youth Crime and Undergraduate and Postgraduate Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods. My research and teaching experience is eclectic and follows the philosophy of the ‘Intellectual Speculator’ (Pareto, 1935), by traversing both social and natural sciences. My doctoral research was an ethnographic account of the true meaning and nature of the Paulsgrove ‘Riots’, which took place in August 2000 after the murder of Sarah Payne and the News of the World’s Naming and Shaming Campaign. My research exposed the real reason behind the demonstrations, by examining the motives and perspectives of the demonstrators involved. In doing so, it uncovered the fact that a prolific child sex offender was undertaking a programme of grooming the local environment, families and children, and exposed how police and politicians constructed a negative ‘discourse’ towards the demonstrators in order to cover the fact that complaints that were made against the ‘groomer’ had largely been ignored.

My research and teaching portfolio includes research methods (advanced quantitative and qualitative), profiling and understanding sexual and violent offenders, probation practice and integrated offender management in light of the current Government’s transforming rehabilitation agenda, and the fallacies of moral panic theory. I have also acted as the Treasurer of the British Society of Criminology.

My current research is an online ethnography of online child sex offender activism and profiling child sexual groomers.

My principal research interests lie in the areas of cyber-activism relating to online child sex offender grooming and internet stings, sexual and violent offenders, and systems of public protection and probation management.