Prior to joining Middlesex University, I worked in a variety of practitioner roles within the criminal justice system in prison and in the community. This includes working as a drug and alcohol practitioner and as a qualified probation officer.
In 2020, I completed my PhD, this was focused on the resettlement of short sentence prisoners that have taken place under the 'transforming rehabilitation' reforms, with the aims to understand how this sentence is experienced by those subject to it, and enacted by practitioners 'on the ground floor level'.
Education
PhD: 'Practitioner and service user experiences of short term imprisonment and resettlement under the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014'
PGcert Higher Education and Fellow of the HEA
PG Diploma in Community Justice
MA Youth Justice, Community Safety and Applied Criminology. Winner of the Yvonne Heard Award in Criminology
BA Honours Sociology and Criminology
My main areas of teaching include the criminal justice system, rehabilitation and desistance, penology and prisons and gangs and group offending.
I teach on the first year module institutions of criminal justice, the second year module prisons and penology, the third year modules rehabilitation and comunity support and also gangs, group offending and joint enterprise. At postgraduate level I am the module leader for dissertations and teach on the applied criminology, youth and criminal justice programme.
I am the programme leader for BA Criminology and also BA Criminology and criminal justice.
My research interests include the lived experiences of punishment, mass supervision, prison policy and practice, probation policy and practice, and resettlement/reentry from prison.
I would be interested in providing doctoral supervision in any of the above areas.
Cracknell, Matthew (2023) ‘Trying to make it matter’: The challenges of assimilating a resettlement culture into a ‘local’ prison. Criminology & Criminal Justice , 23 (2). pp. 165-182. ISSN 1748-8958
Cracknell, Matthew (2023) The diminishing voice of the probation service. Probation Quarterly , 27 . pp. 35-40. ISSN 2752-6933
Ward, Jennifer and Cracknell, Matthew (2023) ‘Prisoners abroad’ resettlement service: Housing security and lessons for probation. Probation Quarterly , 27 . pp. 21-25. ISSN 2752-6933
Cracknell, Matthew (2023) Invisible men: Short prison sentences and the pains of invisibility and insignificance. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice . ISSN 2059-1098 (Published online first)
Cracknell, Matthew (2023) Horizontal and vertical responsibilisation in the resettlement field. Safer Communities , 22 (1). pp. 28-41. ISSN 1757-8043
Founding member and co-conveynor of the Middlesex University Prisons Research Group (PRG): https://www.mdx.ac.uk/our-research/research-groups/prisons-research-group
current research project on the Prisoners Abroad resettlement charity
Recent presentations to the National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) and the Probation Institute
Memberships
European Society of Criminology (ESC) member of the community sanctions and measures working group (CSM WG)
British Society of Criminology (BSC) member of the Prison research network (PRN)
The Howard League for Penal Reform
National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO)
The Probation Institute
