Mollie Ruler

Mollie Ruler is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Southampton, specializing in the politics of criminal justice reform. Her work focuses on analyzing the persistence of the prison crisis and strategies to secure public support and political will for long-term solutions.

Her research integrates law, social psychology, and criminal justice to examine resistance to prison reform and offender rehabilitation. She is affiliated with multiple research groups, including the Centre for Justice Studies, Centre for Research on Self and Identity, Centre for Democratic Futures, and Public Opinion Research Southampton (PORS).

Mollie teaches seminars on modules such as Crises of the 21st Century (Politics), Criminal Justice (Law), Statistics and Practical (Psychology), and (dis)United Kingdom (Politics). Her provisional PhD research explores socio-political trust and anxiety as drivers of criminal justice policy politicization and mass incarceration in England & Wales.

Research Groups:

• Centre for Justice Studies
• Centre for Research on Self and Identity
• Centre for Democratic Futures
• Public Opinion Research Southampton (PORS)