Dr Samantha Weston

PhD Criminology, University of Manchester, 2013

PGCE Higher Education, Keele University, 2013

MRes Criminology, University of Manchester, 2008

MA Criminology, Keele University, 2001

BA Law and Accounting Studies, Staffordshire University, 2000

Sam Weston joined the University of Birmingham as an Associate Professor of Criminology in 2023 having held a previous academic appointment at Keele University. She joined Keele in 2012 and was later promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018. Before joining Keele and completing her PhD at the University of Manchester, Sam had held a number of research appointments. As a research associate at the University of Manchester, she was involved in a number of Home Office and Department of Health funded research projects covering various aspects of drug misuse treatment. Throughout her career, Sam has maintained an interest in the overarching themes of social inequality, and the exclusion, discrimination and injustice experienced by marginalised communities. Her research can be consolidated under the

overarching theme of ‘Risk Prevention’ with a particular emphasis on the role of the police within these spaces. Sam’s research focuses on the on the intersection between criminal justice and health, with a particular emphasis on how professionals implement criminal justice and health-related policy in practice settings.

LH Drugs: Society, Politics and Policy

Samantha has supervised PGR projects on a number of topics including: military transitions, drug misuse, harmful sexual behaviour, and policing vulnerability.

Research interests 

• The illegalisation (criminalisation) of already marginalised populations, including young people and people that use drugs or have experienced mental health crisis
• The practical implementation of policy at the intersection of between criminal justice and health
• Vulnerability
• Risk prevention and early intervention

Sam is a steering group member of the British Society of Criminology's Vulnerability Research Network, which was established in 2020 and has previously worked with Staffordshire Police on their Mental Health Street Triage and on the implementation of the National Vulnerability Action Plan. Sam has drawn down funding from the ESRC (CASE studentships), central government (Home Office and Department of Health), the police and the third sector.