Alex Black

Dr. Alex Black is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Sheffield Hallam University's Sheffield Institute of Law and Justice, part of the College of Social Sciences and Arts. She leads the Criminology course and teaches modules on graduate research, policing, cybercrime, and dissertation supervision. Her research focuses on policing practices, anti-social behavior regulation, and marginalized populations' experiences, with particular attention to homeless individuals and D/deaf communities' access to police services.

Education includes a BA and MA in Criminology from the University of Hull, followed by a PhD from the University of York investigating post-industrial urban regeneration. Prior roles include research positions at Greater Manchester Police, Keele University, Nottingham University, and Loughborough University. She joined Sheffield Hallam in 2017.

Research interests include the intersection of law and social control, with emphasis on procedural justice, public space management, and the impact of austerity on policing. Her work critiques tools like Community Protection Notices and Public Spaces Protection Orders, highlighting their disproportionate effects on vulnerable groups.

Publications span over a decade, addressing anti-social behavior regulation, cybercrime response, domestic abuse protocols, and hate crime dynamics post-Brexit. Notable contributions include ethnographic studies of police control rooms and policy submissions to UK parliamentary committees. She supervises doctoral research, including work on coercive control in domestic abuse contexts.