About the Centre

The Glasgow Centre for the Study of Violence was established at Glasgow Caledonian University in 2003. The Centre brings a new approach to the problem of violence, combining the expertise that exists in the University with the research and policy experience of collaborating organisations in criminal justice and mental health. The Centre brings together academic contributions from Forensic Psychology, Social Research, Criminology, and Risk along with experts from the police, the prison service, the health service, criminal justice social work and residential services for juvenile offenders.

The Centre has defined violence as:

"Any human action that causes human injury".  The perpetrator may be an individual, group, community, organisation or state and may also be the victim.  The action may be physical or verbal; direct or indirect; purposive or negligent; coercive or consensual. The effect may be intended, unintended or collateral; immediate, cumulative or delayed. The victim may be an individual, group, community, or any collective.  Injury may be physical, psychological, social or cultural.

 The Centre is

• developing theoretical frameworks for the analysis of the causes of criminal violence.
• collaborating with a range of agencies that work with violent offenders in developing a national research programme to monitor and evaluate preventative and rehabilitative interventions designed to reduce levels of violent crime.
• working to evaluate and exchange research knowledge and advice amongst academic and operational organisations, nationally and internationally.

The purpose of the research programme is to contribute to community safety in Scotland by informing the responses to criminal violence made by operational agencies with the best available international research knowledge in the area and contextualizing this to the Scottish situation.

Updated: 26/08/2008 | Site editor | Legal