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Dr Matthew Jones

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Director of Policing Organisation and Practice
  • The Faculty of Business & Law
  • The Open University Business School
  • Department for Public Leadership & Social Enterprise
  • matthew.jones

Web links

Professional biography

Matthew is currently Director of Policing Organisation and Practice in the Faculty of Business and Law. He commenced this role on 1 Sept 2019. He leads a team of interdisciplinary academics developing a portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes that are delivered to police forces nationally. Matthew sits on several Faculty committees and is part of the Centre for Policing Research and Learning leadership team. 

Matthew joined the Open University in July 2017 as a Teaching Director. In this role he was responsible for the design and development of a portfolio of new policing programmes at the OU linked to the Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF). 

Matthew has previously held academic positions at Liverpool John Moores University (as Senior Lecturer in Policing) and Northumbria University Newcastle (as Programme Leader for Criminology). 

An interdisciplinary social scientist, Matthew’s interests include: 

- Policing: including the role and function of the police in contemporary society; community policing;  policing and victimology; police and crime; researching police organisations. 

- Criminal Justice Organisations and Management: including the structures and governance of key criminal justice organisations; ethics and accountability; visual and cultural representations; organisational culture and reform; evidence-based practice. 

-  Contemporary intersections between LGBT identities and crime / criminal justice organisations: including the occupational experiences and contributions of LGBT police officers; police investigation of LGBT Hate Crime.

Matthew is currently the Chair of the national British Society of Criminology Policing Network.

Research interests

Current Project (2019-2021)

Matthew is currently working on a jointly funded ESRC project with Prof Mike Rowe (Northumbria University) and Prof Andrew Millie (Edge Hill University) entitled Visible Policing: the Affective Properties of Police Buildings, Images and Material Culture.

This project will be the first to explore the visual culture of contemporary policing. Drawing on visual sociology and visual criminology, it will make significant contributions by applying theories and methodologies of the visual to the sociology of policing. In particular, the project will focus on the symbolic power of police stations, the symbolic properties of police material culture (including ceremonial uniforms, flags, badges, tourist souvenirs, and children's toys), and the visibility of the police in social media, incorporating official and unofficial police accounts. 

Details of the project can be found here - https://visiblepolicing.com/ 

Publications

'5 Minutes With Matt': the Innovative use of Micro Video Blogging in Higher Education (2016-04)
Jones, Matthew L.
Innovative Practice in Higher Education, 2(3) (pp. 57-64)

Creating the ‘thinking police officer’: Exploring Motivations and Professional Impact of Part-time Higher Education (2016)
Jones, Matthew
Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 3(1) (pp. 232-240)

Sixteen Years On - Examining Role of Diversity within Contemporary Policing [Editorial] (2015-03-01)
Jones, Matthew and Rowe, Mike
Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 9(1) (pp. 2-4)

Who Forgot Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Police Officers? Findings from a National Survey (2015-01-23)
Jones, Matthew
Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 9(1) (pp. 65-76)

Twenty years on: lesbian, gay and bisexual police officers' experiences of workplace discrimination in England and Wales (2015)
Jones, Matthew and Williams, Matthew
Policing and Society, 25(2) (pp. 188-211)

Trans sex workers in the UK: security, services and safety (2017-12-15)
Laing, Mary; Jones, Matthew; Campbell, Del and Strohmayer, Angelika
In: Laing, Mary and Sanders, Teela eds. Policing the Sex Industry: Protection, Paternalism and Politics (pp. 39-52)
ISBN : 9781138716629 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Researching sexuality and policing: reflections from the field (2015-11-26)
Jones, Matthew L.
In: Brunger, Mark; Tong, Stephen and Martin, Denise eds. Introduction to Policing Research: Taking Lessons from Practice
ISBN : 9780415750400 | Publisher : Routledge

A diversity stone left unturned? Exploring the occupational complexities surrounding lesbian, gay and bisexual police officers (2014-10-09)
Jones, Matthew
In: Brown, Jennifer M. ed. The Future of Policing
ISBN : 9780415821629 | Publisher : Routledge