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Ms Charlotte Knight

Job: Honorary Researcher

Faculty: Health and Life Sciences

School/department: School of Applied Social Sciences

Research group(s): Criminal Justice Research Group

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

T: N/A

E: chknight@dmu.ac.uk

W: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/hls

 

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Personal profile

Dr Charlotte Knight retired from her full time post as principal lecturer in community and criminal justice in 2011.  Since then she has completed her PhD, published a book based on the thesis and is currently working on two European probation research projects with colleagues in the Division of Community and Criminal Justice (CCJ). She is also co-writing a book with a colleague from CCJ on LGBT people and Criminal Justice.

Research group affiliations

Publications and outputs

  • Probation education and training: An overview of the research.
    dc.title: Probation education and training: An overview of the research. dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.; Ward, David, 1946-
  • Probation and offender manager training: An argument for an integrated approach.
    dc.title: Probation and offender manager training: An argument for an integrated approach. dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.; Stout, Brian
  • Diversity: Contested meanings and differential consequences
    dc.title: Diversity: Contested meanings and differential consequences dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.; Dominey, Jane; Hudson, J.
  • The integration of theory and practice within the diploma in probation studies: How is it achieved?
    dc.title: The integration of theory and practice within the diploma in probation studies: How is it achieved? dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.; White, Kate
  • People first: Probation Officer perspectives on probation work
    dc.title: People first: Probation Officer perspectives on probation work dc.contributor.author: Annison, Jill; Eadie, T.; Knight, C. H.
  • Why Choose Probation?
    dc.title: Why Choose Probation? dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.
  • Work with offenders: the primacy of assessment
    dc.title: Work with offenders: the primacy of assessment dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.
  • Qualifying probation training: implications for social work education
    dc.title: Qualifying probation training: implications for social work education dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.; Ward, David, 1946- dc.description: This collaborative paper examines the new (then) qualifying training scheme for probation officers and the implications for social work education. It considers partnerships with employers and the contractual relationship with HE institutions. It identifies the strengths of a competence based, outcome-focused and evidence based curriculum (‘What Works’); and it critically reviews the implementation of procedures for inter-linking lower level qualifications and crediting prior learning and achievement. The target audience was academics, policy makers and practitioners in the field of training across social work and probation practice, at a time when the concept of employment-based learning was still relatively new.
  • Training for a modern service
    dc.title: Training for a modern service dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H. dc.description: This chapter was written at a time of national expansion of the current training arrangements for probation officers (Diploma in Probation Studies) located within Higher Education. It mounts a defence of the work-based nature of the programme and its success in enabling trainee probation officers to integrate theory and practice and to develop their critical, reflective and anti-discriminatory thinking and practice. The chapter makes a distinctive contribution to the current debate on the plans for a new national qualification framework for probation training, which hopefully will continue to be located within Higher Education.
  • The probation service as part of NOMS in England and Wales: fit for purpose?
    dc.title: The probation service as part of NOMS in England and Wales: fit for purpose? dc.contributor.author: Knight, C. H.; Bailey, Richard; Williams, Brian dc.description: A collaborative piece of work, to which the author contributed most of the first draft. The intended audience is practitioners and managers within the Probation Service/NOMS, and students undertaking practice training and criminology degrees. The book is recently published, and NOMS has now awarded DMU a tender for the development of a new curriculum and qualification framework for staff within the offender management model; some of the ideas and themes within this chapter, which address themselves specifically to the need for a holistic national training framework within the national qualifications framework, will be used in this process of development.

View a full listing of Charlotte Knight's publications and outputs. 

Key research outputs

  • Phd in Criminology (2012) Soft skills for hard work: an exploration of the efficacy of the emotional literacy of practitioners working within the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) with high-risk offenders.
  • The Criminal Justice Social Work Project (2012-2014), developed by Avans University, in the Netherlands, is a collaboration with other educational institutions and practice organisations in the Netherlands, France, Scotland, England and Wales, Rumania, Latvia and Norway and with the cooperation of the Confederation of European Probation (CEP) to produce six teaching modules for initial education of future professionals and post initial education for probation officers.  At DMU we developed two of these modules on the legal and organizational framework for probation practice and on assessment.
  • STREAM project (Strategic Targeting of Recidivism through Evaluation and Monitoring) – a major European research project funded by the EU and involving criminal justice agencies, Ministries and universities in several European countries.  I have been involved in interviewing (by Skype) practitioners, policy makers and academics in six European countries, and in supporting and reviewing two pilot projects on evaluation in Italy and Warwickshire (UK).

Research interests/expertise

  • Emotional literacy in criminal justice
  • Diversity in criminal justice
  • Probation practice, probation training and curriculum development
  • Evaluation of probation practice in Europe

Qualifications

  • Dundee University: 1971; Certificate in Social Administration
  • Leicester University: 1973; Diploma in Social Work & CQSW
  • Loughborough University: 1994; MSc Criminology and Criminal Justice
  • Certificate in Research Supervision 1999
  • TDLB Assessors Award D32 & D33, Nov 2000
  • PhD Criminology, Criminal Justice. De Montfort University, December 2012

Membership of external committees

  • Member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Community Justice

Membership of professional associations and societies

  • National Association of Probation Officers (since 1973)
  • Howard League for Criminal Justice (since 1986)
  • British Society of Criminology (since 1994)

Case studies

Students on the Probation Qualifying programme at DMU have cited Charlotte’s work on emotional literacy and she has presented papers on this subject, including at an international audience at a conference on the CJSW project at Avans University, The Netherlands in February 2014.