Professor Iain Brennan's Outputs (43)

Domestic abuse in later life: A secondary analysis of the crime survey for England and Wales (2025)
Journal Article
Bows, H., Pullerits, M., & Brennan, I. (2025). Domestic abuse in later life: A secondary analysis of the crime survey for England and Wales. European Journal of Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708251335388

Until recently, older victims – and perpetrators – of domestic abuse were largely absent from both research and policy, leaving a lacuna of empirical and theoretical understandings of abuse in later life. This article presents the findings from the f... Read More about Domestic abuse in later life: A secondary analysis of the crime survey for England and Wales.

Exclusion from School and Risk of Serious Violence: A Target Trial Emulation Study (2025)
Journal Article
Cornish, R., & Brennan, I. (in press). Exclusion from School and Risk of Serious Violence: A Target Trial Emulation Study. The British journal of criminology, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaf015

Evidence for or against a causal effect of school exclusion on offending is inhibited by random allocation not being available on ethical grounds. To advance understanding of the connection between school exclusion and offending—specifically, serious... Read More about Exclusion from School and Risk of Serious Violence: A Target Trial Emulation Study.

Measuring serious violence perpetration: comparison of police-recorded and self-reported data in a UK cohort (2025)
Journal Article
Cornish, R., Teyhan, A., Tilling, K., Macleod, J., & Brennan, I. (2025). Measuring serious violence perpetration: comparison of police-recorded and self-reported data in a UK cohort. International Journal of Population Data Science, 10(1), https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v10i1.2391

Introduction
Determining risk factors and consequences of serious violence requires accurate measures of violence. Self-reported and police-recorded offending are subject to different sources of bias.
Objectives
To compare risk of self-reported an... Read More about Measuring serious violence perpetration: comparison of police-recorded and self-reported data in a UK cohort.

The meaning and use of weapons in an English remand prison (2024)
Journal Article
Pieri, B., & Brennan, I. (online). The meaning and use of weapons in an English remand prison. Journal of Criminal Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1108/JCP-09-2024-0088

Purpose: Weapon use is as risky in prison as it is in the community, but the type, use and meaning of weapons differ between these settings. Consequently, knowledge about community-based weapon violence may not generalise to prison contexts. The purp... Read More about The meaning and use of weapons in an English remand prison.

Problem solving violent crime: a guide for analysts (2024)
Report
Sidebottom, A., Agar, I., Brennan, I., & Chainey, S. (2024). Problem solving violent crime: a guide for analysts. Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire: College of Policing

The investigation and representation of multi-perpetrator child sexual exploitation (CSE) in England and Wales (2024)
Thesis
Colley, S. The investigation and representation of multi-perpetrator child sexual exploitation (CSE) in England and Wales. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4867065

This thesis explores the challenges of investigating multi-perpetrator child sexual exploitation (CSE). There is a lack of overall knowledge of who the offenders are within this form of sexual offending against children. This research addresses this... Read More about The investigation and representation of multi-perpetrator child sexual exploitation (CSE) in England and Wales.

Focused deterrence: A protocol for a realist multisite randomised controlled trial for evaluating a violence prevention intervention in the UK (2024)
Journal Article
Simanovic, T., McFarlane, P., Brennan, I., Sutherland, A., & Graham, W. (2024). Focused deterrence: A protocol for a realist multisite randomised controlled trial for evaluating a violence prevention intervention in the UK. PLoS ONE, 19(3), Article e0301023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301023

Introduction Focused deterrence (FD) is a frequently cited intervention for preventing violence, particularly against violent urban gangs. The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) believes it could be effective in the UK, based primarily on research conducted... Read More about Focused deterrence: A protocol for a realist multisite randomised controlled trial for evaluating a violence prevention intervention in the UK.

Prevalence and patterns of domestic abuse victimisation in an English police workforce (2023)
Journal Article
Brennan, I., Couto, L., & O’Leary, N. (2023). Prevalence and patterns of domestic abuse victimisation in an English police workforce. Policing and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2184817

Perhaps more than any other occupation, police witness the context and aftermath of domestic abuse but little is known about the police-victim overlap with regard to domestic abuse. This paper, based on survey responses from approximately one-quarter... Read More about Prevalence and patterns of domestic abuse victimisation in an English police workforce.

Police practitioner views on the challenges of analysing and responding to knife crime (2023)
Journal Article
Bullock, K., Agar, I., Ashby, M., Brennan, I., Hales, G., Sidebottom, A., & Tilley, N. (2023). Police practitioner views on the challenges of analysing and responding to knife crime. Crime Science, 12(1), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-022-00180-1

Knife crime remains a major concern in England and Wales. Problem-oriented and public health approaches to tackling knife crime have been widely advocated, but little is known about how these approaches are understood and implemented by police practi... Read More about Police practitioner views on the challenges of analysing and responding to knife crime.

Police victims of domestic abuse: barriers to reporting victimisation (2023)
Journal Article
Couto, L., O’Leary, N., & Brennan, I. (2023). Police victims of domestic abuse: barriers to reporting victimisation. Policing and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2250523

Policing is the institution responsible for protecting victims of domestic abuse and the institution to which victimisation is formally reported. The police workforce, therefore, are routinely exposed to domestic abuse victimisation, perpetration and... Read More about Police victims of domestic abuse: barriers to reporting victimisation.

The potential for linking cohort participants to official criminal records: a pilot study using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) (2022)
Journal Article
Boyd, A., Teyhan, A., Cornish, R. P., Croft, J., Thomas, R., Brennan, I., & Macleod, J. (2022). The potential for linking cohort participants to official criminal records: a pilot study using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Wellcome Open Research, 5, Article 271. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16328.2

Introduction: Linking longitudinal cohort resources with police-recorded records of criminal activity has the potential to inform public health style approaches to policing, and may reduce potential sources of bias from self-reported criminal data co... Read More about The potential for linking cohort participants to official criminal records: a pilot study using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

Evaluating interventions for violence prevention using linked MoJ-DfE data: a feasibility study. (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Cornish, R., Tilling, K., & Brennan, I. Evaluating interventions for violence prevention using linked MoJ-DfE data: a feasibility study. Presented at 2022 International Population Data Linkage Network Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland

Objective
To assess the feasibility of using linked education and offending data (from the National Pupil Database, Department for Education and the Police National Computer, Ministry of Justice) to identify matched control groups to evaluate violen... Read More about Evaluating interventions for violence prevention using linked MoJ-DfE data: a feasibility study..

Knife crime: A problem-solving guide (2021)
Other
Brennan, I., Sidebottom, A., Agar, I., Ashby, M., Bullock, K., Hales, G., & Tilley, N. (2021). Knife crime: A problem-solving guide. [PDF]

Knife crime can destroy lives and fracture communities. It disproportionately blights the lives of the young and disadvantaged. After decreasing in the early 2010s, it has risen in recent years. Tackling it must be one of policing’s top priorities.... Read More about Knife crime: A problem-solving guide.

Violence, worry and trust in the emergence of weapon-carrying (2021)
Journal Article
Brennan, I. R. (2021). Violence, worry and trust in the emergence of weapon-carrying. European Journal of Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708211046193

This paper identifies longitudinal predictors of weapon-carrying in a sample of 10–25 year olds in England and Wales. It conceptualises weapon-carrying as anticipation of an adverse event and proposes hypotheses about the origins of weapon-carrying d... Read More about Violence, worry and trust in the emergence of weapon-carrying.

Coercive control: Patterns in crimes, arrests and outcomes for a new domestic abuse offence (2021)
Journal Article
Brennan, I., & Myhill, A. (2022). Coercive control: Patterns in crimes, arrests and outcomes for a new domestic abuse offence. The British journal of criminology, 62(2), 468-483. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab072

Critics of the criminalization of coercive control warned that the criminal justice system was ill-prepared for a conceptualization of domestic abuse that relies on victim accounts of fear and manipulation rather than on evidence of violence. Using d... Read More about Coercive control: Patterns in crimes, arrests and outcomes for a new domestic abuse offence.

Policing a new domestic abuse crime: effects of force-wide training on arrests for coercive control (2021)
Journal Article
Brennan, I., Myhill, A., Tagliaferri, G., & Tapley, J. (2021). Policing a new domestic abuse crime: effects of force-wide training on arrests for coercive control. Policing and Society, 31(10), 1153-1167. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2020.1862838

Following a pre-registered study design, we estimated the effect of police force-wide domestic abuse training on arrests for the new crime of ‘controlling or coercive behaviour’. Using data on monthly counts of arrest for controlling or coercive beha... Read More about Policing a new domestic abuse crime: effects of force-wide training on arrests for coercive control.

Building Bridges: Prisoners, Crime Victims and Restorative Justice (2019)
Book
Brennan, I., & Johnston, G. (2019). Building Bridges: Prisoners, Crime Victims and Restorative Justice. Eleven International Publishing

Across Europe, restorative justice has gained acceptance as a way of resolving disputes and mitigating the harm of crime in the community. Practitioners have also begun to coordinate restorative meetings in prisons in an effort to reduce the harms of... Read More about Building Bridges: Prisoners, Crime Victims and Restorative Justice.

Service provider difficulties in operationalising coercive control (2018)
Journal Article
Gormally, S., Brennan, I. R., Burton, V., Gormally, S., & O’Leary, N. (2019). Service provider difficulties in operationalising coercive control. Violence against women, 25(6), 635-653. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801218797478

© The Author(s) 2018. We examined perspectives of social workers, police officers, and specialist domestic abuse practitioners about their perceived ability and organizational readiness to respond effectively to incidents of coercive and controlling... Read More about Service provider difficulties in operationalising coercive control.

Weapon-carrying and the reduction of violent harm (2018)
Journal Article
Brennan, I. R. (2019). Weapon-carrying and the reduction of violent harm. The British journal of criminology, 59(3), 571-593. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azy032

Criminology has much to offer activities to reduce the harm of violent incidents –– particularly by reducing weapon-carrying and use – but the discipline’s engagement with the harm reduction agenda has been limited. In addressing this, the paper iden... Read More about Weapon-carrying and the reduction of violent harm.

Police-initiated diversion for youth to prevent future delinquent behavior: a systematic review (2018)
Journal Article
Wilson, D. B., Brennan, I., & Olaghere, A. (2018). Police-initiated diversion for youth to prevent future delinquent behavior: a systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 14, https://doi.org/10.4073/csr.2018.5

Background
Overly punitive responses to youth misconduct may have the unintended consequence of
increasing the likelihood of future delinquency; yet, overly lenient responses may fail to serve
as a corrective for the misbehavior. Police diversion... Read More about Police-initiated diversion for youth to prevent future delinquent behavior: a systematic review.