Staff profile

Dr Emma Milne joined Durham Law School in September 2020 as Assistant Professor in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. Emma obtained her PhD in sociology from the University of Essex, funded by the Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts South-east England (CHASE), who are funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Following this Emma worked as a Lecturer in Criminology at Middlesex University and the University of Plymouth.

Emma is actively involved with a number of learned societies:

• Chair of the European Reproductive Justice Network (ERJN)
• Member of the Board of Trustees for the Socio-Legal Studies Association
• Steering group member, Women, Crime and Criminal Justice network of British Society of Criminology

Follow Emma on Twitter.

Teaching Areas

• Criminal law

Emma is a Fellow of the HEA and holds a Postgraduate Certificate of Higher Education (Middlesex University).

Research Areas

Emma is a feminist socio-legal scholar. The focus of her research is the social, legal, and cultural controls and regulation of all women, notably in relation to pregnancy, sex, and reproduction.

Research Projects

Emma is currently looking at attitudes and perspectives held by legal professionals (solicitors, barristers, prosecutors, and judges) in relation to criminal law and criminal justice responses to women suspected of killing newborn children or harming foetuses. This project is funded by the BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants 2020. Emma’s previous research has assessed the use of law and what is formerly said about accused women during criminal hearings, but there remains a gap in our knowledge about the perspectives of those who work to apply the law.

Qualitative interviews with legal professionals will directly address this under-researched issue. This research will promote understanding of the societal contexts of professionals’ responses, examining how gendered ideas of women’s roles as mothers, and perceptions of female offending, figure in professionals’ assessments of these cases. Consequently, this research will enable clearer conclusions to be drawn about the law’s current appropriateness.

• Feminist legal studies
• Social and legal regulation of women's sexuality and bodies
• Criminal liability of pregnant women
• Women's reproductive rights/freedom
• Legal protection of the foetus
• Infanticide/neonaticide/maternal filicide
• Feminist criminology
• Women who offend
• Violent women
• Gender and crime

• Gender & Law at Durham

• Academia.edu
• Google Scholar
• LinkedIn
• Research Gate

Available for media contact about:

• Crime: Criminalisation of women
• Law & Crime: Foetal homicide/protection laws
• Law & Crime: Infanticide
• Law & Crime: Women who commit violent offences
• Law & Crime: Women's reproductive rights
• Law & Crime: Abortion law

Authored book

• Milne, Emma (2021). Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the Failed Mother. Emerald Publishing Limited.
• Fanghanel, Alexandra, Milne, Emma, Zampini, Giulia F., Banwell, Stacy & Fiddler, Michael (2020). Sex and Crime. London: Sage.

Book review

• Milne, Emma (2021). Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood. European Journal of Health Law 28: 1-4.
• Milne, Emma (2021). Book review: The Cultural and Economic Context of Maternal Infanticide: A Crying Baby and the Inability to Escape, by Martha Smithey. Criminology & Criminal Justice
• Milne, Emma (2021). Book review: Hans Boutellier, A Criminology of Moral Order. Criminology & Criminal Justice
• Milne, Emma (2020). Disrupting Rape Culture: Public Space, Sexuality and Revolt. Qualitative Research
• Milne, Emma (2020). A Criminology of War? Theoretical Criminology
• Milne, Emma (2020). Decriminalising Abortion in the UK: What Would It Mean? European Journal of Health Law 27(4): 415-417.
• Milne, Emma (2020). Beyond Pro-life and Pro-choice: The Changing Politics of Abortion in Britain. European Journal of Health Law 27(4): 411-414.
• Milne, Emma (2020). Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology Are Remaking Reproduction and the Law. European Journal of Health Law 27(1): 79–82.
• Milne, Emma (2018). The Moral Case for Abortion. European Journal of Health Law 25(2): 223-227.
• Milne, Emma (2018). Women Against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century. Women's History: The Journal of the Women’s History Network 11(Autumn): 48.
• Milne, Emma (2017). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in Adults: Ethical and Legal Perspectives: An Overview on FASD for Professionals. European Journal of Health Law 24(5): 646-649.

Chapter in book

• Thom, Betsy, Herring, Rachel & Milne, Emma (2020). Drinking in Pregnancy: Shifting Towards the ‘Precautionary Principle’. In Risk and Substance Use: Framing Dangerous People and Dangerous Places. MacGregor, Susanne & Thom, Betsy London: Routledge. 66-87.
• Milne, Emma & Brennan, Karen (2019). Infanticide, Neonaticide, and Gender. In The Encyclopedia of Women and Crime. Bernat, Frances P. & Frailing, Kelly Wiley.
• Brennan, Karen & Milne, Emma (2019). Infanticide. In The Encyclopedia of Women and Crime. Bernat, Frances P. & Frailing, Kelly Wiley.
• Brennan, Karen & Milne, Emma (2018). Criminalising Neonaticide: Reflections on Law and Practice in England and Wales. In Women and the Criminal Justice System. Milne, Emma, Brennan, Karen, South, Nigel & Turton, Jackie London: Palgrave. 95-117.
• Brennan, Karen, Milne, Emma, South, Nigel & Turton, Jackie (2018). Women and the Criminal Justice System—Moving Beyond the Silo. In Women and the Criminal Justice System. Milne, Emma, Brennan, Karen, South, Nigel & Turton, Jackie London: Palgrave. 1-11.
• Milne, Emma & Turton, Jackie (2018). Understanding Violent Women. In Women and the Criminal Justice System. Milne, Emma, Brennan, Karen, South, Nigel & Turton, Jackie London: Palgrave. 119-139.

Doctoral Thesis

• Milne, Emma (2017). Suspicious Perinatal Death and the Law: Criminalising Mothers who do not Conform. Department of Sociology. University of Essex. PhD.

Edited book

• Milne, Emma, Brennan, Karen, South, Nigel & Turton, Jackie (2018). Women and the Criminal Justice System. London: Palgrave.

Journal Article

• Milne, Emma (2020). Putting the Fetus First — Legal Regulation, Motherhood, and Pregnancy. Michigan Journal of Gender & Law 27(1): 149-211.
• Milne, Emma (2019). Concealment of Birth: Time to Repeal a 200-Year-Old “Convenient Stop-Gap”? Feminist Legal Studies 27(2): 139-162.