Professor Clive Norris
Room Number: LG15
Telephone (external): 0114 222 6460
Telephone (internal): 26460
email : c.norris@sheffield.ac.uk
Professor Clive Norris
(BA, MSc, PhD) -
Head of Department / Professor of Sociology and Deputy Director of the Sheffield University Centre for Criminological Research
Academic Profile
I was born in London in 1960, I studied Sociology at the University of Sussex, graduating in 1981. In 1982 I was awarded an ERSC Studentship to undertake an M.Sc in Social Research Methods at the University of Surrey. It was here that my interest in the sociology of crime and social control was first kindled. As part of our course we had to undertake a compulsory placement with a research outfit. I found myself seconded to the Police Foundation for six weeks to undertake a study of police patrolling. This serendipitous placement laid the foundations of my future interests. Not only did it become the basis for my M.Sc dissertation, but led to my commitment to a sociology based on first-hand observation; a love of the adrenaline rush of high speed chases in the name of research; and a sustained interest in the sociology of social control. It also saw me ideally placed to apply for a linked ESRC PhD scholarship in 1983 to study the sociology of policing under the direction of Dr. Nigel Fielding at the University of Surrey. My fieldwork returned me to the world police chases, the boredom of the police canteen at 3 am and even found me living in a police station for two months. Despite the lure of the field I completed my doctorate entitled 'Avoiding Trouble - an observation study of police patrolling in two police forces' in 1986 whilst simultaneously being employed as a research officer on a two year ESRC project to evaluate the impact of community policing initiatives.
1987 saw me take up a temporary, one year, teaching post at the then Ealing College of Higher Education (now Thames Valley University) and in 1988 a permanent post at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) to teach the sociology of deviance, criminal justice and social research methods. I moved to Hull to become a lecturer in Criminology in 1993 and began to develop my research profile and interest in the sociology of surveillance. I started with an ESRC grant to explore the subterranean world of the police use of informers, and then in the wake of the tragic killing of toddler Jamie Bulger, a grant to examine the social impact of CCTV surveillance. In 1998 I was awarded funding by the ESRC to run a series of seminars on Surveillance. This for the first time brought together interdisciplinary researchers concerned with the social impact of the new surveillance technologies. As a direct result we established a free online journal entitled Surveillance & Society - of which I am one of the founding editors. At present I am working on a comparative study of the social impact of CCTV in seven European countries.
Read about the social impact of CCTV in seven European countries
Visit the online journal Surveillance & Society
Research
Since completing my PhD in 1987 on the Sociology of Policing my research has focussed on various aspects of the sociology of policing and social control. My doctorate, based on extensive semi-participant observation of police patrolling, explored how street level officers saw the world and how this vision influenced and constrained their work. A commitment to ethnographically based, first-hand, observation of the social world is a distinctive feature of nearly all my work, although increasingly it has become more methodologically eclectic combining a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques, such as quantitative observation schedules, semi-structured interviews, survey questionnaires and documentary analysis. It has become my firm belief that through the use of multiple techniques we can produce accounts that are both sociologically richer and which can also have a greater impact on policy.
In all my work I have been particularly interested in exploring how formal rules (whether legal or organisational) are interpreted and enacted. This had led to an explicit concern with understanding how the outcomes of social control are shaped by an interaction of law, formal organisational rules, and the organisational/operational cultures found in different contexts.
The major funded research I have been involved in include:
- A study of the practice of community policing in the UK – based on semi-structured interviews and quantitative and ethnographic observation techniques (funded by the ESRC 1986-88)
- An analysis of the recruits experience of police training in New South Wales Austrailia – based on ethnographic observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis (funded by the New South Wales Police Board 1990)
- An examination of the conduct and supervision of serious crime investigations – based on observation, semi structured interview and documentary analysis (funded by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice 1992)
- A study of the police use of informers - based on survey questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis and ethnographic observation (funded by the ESRC 1993—1995)
- A study of the operation of CCTV control rooms – based on quantitative and ethnographic observation techniques (funded by the ESRC 1994-96)
- A comparative study of the operation of CCTV in seven European capitals (Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, London, Madrid, Oslo and Vienna - based on quantitative and ethnographic observation, documentary analysis, survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews funded by European Union, Fifth Framework 2000 –2003.
Publications
Books
with Coleman, C. (2000) Introducing Criminology, Cullompton: Willan Publishing
with Armstrong, G. (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: the rise of CCTV, Oxford: Berg
With Moran, J. and Armstrong, G. (1999) Surveillance, Closed Circuit Television and Social Control, Aldershot: Ashgate
with Maguire, M. (1993) The Conduct and Supervision of Criminal Investigations, London: HMSO
(1992) Negotiating Nothing: Dispute Settlement By the Police, Aldershot: Avebury
Refereed journal articles
Norris, C. (2007) `The Intensification and Bifurcation of Surveillance in British Criminal Justice Policy´ in European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research Special edition on Fear v. Freedom post 9/11 - The European Perspective (in press).
with McCahill, M. (2006) `CCTV: Beyond Penal Modernism?´, British Journal of Criminology, vol. 46 no. 1, pp. 97-118.
with Wood, D. and McCahill, M. (2004) `The Growth of CCTV: a global perspective on the international diffusion of video surveillance in publically accessible space´, Surveillance and Society, Vol. 2 no. 2/3: 110-135.
With Dunninghan, C. (1999) `The Detective, The Snout, and the Audit Commission: The Real Costs in Using Informants´, The Howard Journal, vol. 38, no. 1, Feb. pp 67-86
With Armstrong, G. (1998) `Flachendeckende Videouberwachung in Grosbritannien' Buergerrechte und Polizei Cilip, 61 Nr.3
With Dunnighan, C. (1996) `A risky business: exchange, bargaining and risk in the recruitment and running of informers by English police officers´, Police Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, pp 1-25
With Norris, N. (1993) `Defining Good Policing: The Instrumental and Moral in Approaches to Good Practice and Competence´, Policing and Society, vol 3 no 3, pp 205-221
With Kemp, C., Fielding, J. and Fielding, N. (1992) `Black and Blue: an analysis of the effect of race on police stops´, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 43 Issue No 2
Special issues of journals
edited with Wood, D. and McCahill, M. (2004), double issue of Surveillance and Society, vol. 2 nos. 2/3, containing 22 articles on `The Politics of CCTV in Europe and Beyond´
Chapters
Norris, C. and Wilson, D (2006) 'Introduction to Surveillance, Crime and Social Control' in Norris, C. and Wilson, D. (eds) Surveillance, Crime and Social Control. International Library of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Penology - Second Series, Ashgate.
(2003) `From personal to digital: CCTV, the panopticon and the technological mediation of suspicion and social control´, in D. Lyon (ed.) Surveillance and Social Sorting: Privacy Risk and Automated Discrimination, London: Routledge, pp. 249-81.
Forthcoming in German translation in: L. Hempel and J. Metelmann (eds.) Bild - Raum - Kontrolle. Videoüberwachung als Zeichen gesellschaftlichen Wandels, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. 2005.
with McCahill, M. (2003) `Estimating the Extent, Sophistication and Legality of CCTV in London´, in M. Gill (ed.) CCTV, Perpetuity Press, pp. 51 –66.
(in press)`CCTV and Crime Prevention: a Review of the British Experience´ in Jorg-Martin Jehle and Marianne Gras (eds) OffentlicheVideoOberwachung in Europaischen Vergleich, Baden-Baden: Nomos
with M. McCahill (2003)`Victims of Surveillance´ in P. Davis, V. Jupp and P. Francis (eds), Victimology, London: MacMillan
(2002) `From personal to digital: CCTV, the panopticon and the technological mediation of suspicion and social control´, in D. Lyon (ed.) Surveillance and Social Sorting: Privacy Risk and Automated Discrimination, London: Routledge
With McCahill, M. (1999) `Watching the Workers: Crime, CCTV and the Workplace´ in P. Davis, V. Jupp and P. Francis (eds), Invisible Crimes, London: MacMillan
With Armstrong, G. and Moran, J. (1999) `Algorithmic Surveillance: The Future of Automated Visual Surveillance in C. Norris, J. Moran and G. Armstrong (eds), Surveillance, Closed Circuit Television and Social Control, Aldershot: Ashgate
Reports
Norris, C. (2006) `Criminal Justice´ expert report in A Report on the Surveillance Society for the Information Commissioners Office compiled by the Surveillance Studies Network. 13 pages. Available at http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/practical_application/surveillance_society_appendices_06.pdf
Ball, K., Lyon, D., Murakimi-Wood, D., Norris C. and Raab, C. A Report on the Surveillance Society for the Information Commissioners office by the Surveillance Studies Network: Full Report. pp 1-102. Available at: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/practical_application/surveillance_society_full_report_2006.pdf
Norris, C. (2006) Closed Circuit Television: a review of its development and its implications for privacy, a paper prepared for the Department of Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee quarterly meeting on June 7th, in San Francisco, CA. pp1-27 Report available on receipt of email request from privacycommittee@dhs.gov
McCahill, M. and Norris, C. (2003) `CCTV and Public Attitudes´, Report to the European Commission Fifth Framework RTD as part of the UrbanEye: on the threshold of the urban panopticon project (pp 1-21)
McCahill, M . and Norris, C. (2002) Urban Eye Literature Review. Report to the European Commission Fifth Framework RTD as part of UrbanEye: on the threshold of the urban panopticon, published as UrabanEye Working Paper no. 1 by the Centre for Technology and Society, Technical University of Berlin. (pp1-22) Available at: http://www.urbaneye.net/results/results.htm
McCahill, M . and Norris, C. (2002b) CCTV in Britain Urbaneye Report to the European Commission Fifth Framework RTD as part of UrbanEye: on the threshold of the urban panopticon, published as UrbanEye Working Paper no. 3. by the Centre for Technology and Society, Technical University of Berlin (pp1-70). Available at: http://www.urbaneye.net/results/results.htm
McCahill, M . and Norris, C. (2002c) CCTV in London Urbaneye. Report to the European Commission Fifth Framework RTD as part of UrbanEye: on the threshold of the urban panopticon, published as Working Paper no. 6. by the Centre for Technology and Society, Technical University of Berlin (pp1-48) Available at: http://www.urbaneye.net/results/results.htm
Also see: Staff publications since 2001
Teaching
I currently teach two undergraduate modules:
- The Sociology of Crime and Deviance
- Understanding Crime – Sociological Perspectives
I also contribute to the MA in Sociological Research.
MA in Sociological Research
Postgraduate Supervision
I particularly welcome applications from students in the specialist areas listed below although I have broad interests in the sociology of deviance and social control and comparative criminology.
- The sociology of policing
- The police use of informers
- The impact and effectiveness of CCTV surveillance
- Surveillance in the workplace
- The sociology of the new surveillance technologies (DNA, Drug and Alcohol Testing)
- The experience of surveillance
- The media representation of surveillance
- Decision making in the criminal justice system
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