Emma-Cunningham

Emma Cunningham

Senior Lecturer

Criminology

, Royal Docks School of Business and Law

Emma Cunningham has taught police officers, undergraduates and postgraduates since the professionalisation agenda and was involved in the England-Africa Partnership in Rwanda with British Council funding. She has taught Understanding Domestic and Sexual Violence, Victims Rights and Restorative Justice and Victims and Offenders and was involved as a trustee and management member in the community on young people’s projects and domestic violence support agencies. She worked with colleagues on a Police Crime Commissioner funded project to explore early intervention in domestic violence cases involving school children, called Operation Encompass. She researched policewomen’s integration and the ideas which informed this from conceptions of the nature of woman and also explored Freedom of Information disclosures on police disciplinary behaviour (Cunningham 2021). She became external examiner at the University of Hull, was published on a blog as well as writing newspaper and open gov policing articles. She is loving working at UEL on a criminal justice book proposal and has also been asked to be a consultant on a policing TV drama in 2023.

Emma-Cunningham
E.Cunningham@uel.ac.uk 5914 unknown
On This Page

OVERVIEW

Emma Cunningham's background is in politics, feminism and criminology which inform her teaching, research and community interest areas.  She has taught police officers, undergraduates and postgraduates and was involved in the England-Africa Partnership with education and policing in Rwanda with British Council Funding.  

She has taught Understanding Domestic and Sexual Violence, Victims Rights and Restorative Justice and Victims and Offenders.  She was involved as a trustee and management member in the community on young people's projects and domestic violence support agencies. She worked with colleagues on a police crime commissioner-funded project to explore early intervention in domestic violence cases involving school children, called Operation Encompass.  She researched policewomen's integration and the ideas which informed this from conceptions of the nature of woman and also explored Freedom of Information disclosures on police disciplinary behaviour (Cunningham 2022).  She has an interest in community education, free workshops and events for International Women's Day each year.  In October 2021 she became external examiner at the University of Hull.

PUBLICATIONS

Papers, publications and blog

Chapters:

  • Cunningham, E (2021) 'Wollstonecraft, the 'nature of woman', and women entering the police'
  • Cunningham, E (2021) 'Re-emerging arguments about the nature of woman, a re-examination of the Twenty-three policewomen data and a review of policing in Australia'
  • Cunningham, E (2021) 'Feminist Use of Freedom of Information Requests'
     

In:

  • Women in Policing: Feminist Perspectives on Theory and Practice (routledge.com) | 2 min read

 

Online news:

  • Cunningham, E (October 2022)
  • Why are UK police legitimacy and community relations so low? (openaccessgovernment.org)
  • Cunningham, E (Nov 2022) Transformative change to tackle predatory police officers (openaccessgovernment.org)
  • Letter to the Times (Nov 2022) Vile sexists at Gwent police hounded me out of the force | Comment | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)

 

Forthcoming Co-authored Book Chapter 2023:

  • Laverick, W and Cunningham, E (2023) ‘Advances in gender equity in British Policing’ In Prenzler, T Ed.(2023) Gender Inclusive Policing: Challenges and Achievements London, Routledge
  • Cunningham, E (Jan,2023) Chair, Institute for Government and Public Policy (IGPP) ‘Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls’
  • 2023 Policing Drama Consultant

Field trip


The first trip I took students to was to the stomping ground of the foremother of feminism in East London. We  headed off just a 12 minute train ride on the Overground from Stratford to Canonbury followed by an 8 minute walk to Newington Green, the home of radical thinkers from the eighteenth century Enlightenment. Our students are aware of the Enlightenment through our courses but it is useful to see how those theories have had a real impact on real life nearby. While Mary Wollstonecraft mixed with radicals she went further than the men she mixed with in suggesting that women, as human beings with rationality, should have the same rights to an education as the boys and men were allowed during this period. She was vilified for her unconventional life, with her first child out of wedlock and for getting involved in politics being called a hyena in petticoats and a philosophising serpent, and died after giving birth to a second child Mary Shelley who would grow up to write Frankenstein. Good to know we have many of the rights we do enjoy because of women like Mary Wollstonecraft, and she is here and in our university community for all to enjoy.

Anyway just a bit of context to the visit and the woman. A lot of controversy followed the unveiling of the sculpture by Maggi Hambling CBE during lockdown, as it depicts a naked female form, but I think it was a great choice to choose a radical artist now to depict a radical thinker who is the foremother of feminism.

TEACHING

MODULES

  • Theoretical criminology
  • Crime policy into practice