Staff profile

I have worked at Durham University since 2012, based within the Department of Sociology. I am currently the Deputy Director of Research, leading on our impact work within the Department. I am also the Co-Director of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Programme with my colleague Dr Kate’O’Brien.

I am also currently seconded to the Youth Futures Foundation (What Works Centre for Youth Employment) as an ESRC Policy Fellow, primarily leading a project on 'good work' for young people.

I joined Durham University in the autumn of 2012, contributing to the undergraduate Criminology programme before briefly acting as Vice-Principal and Senior Tutor at Ustinov College. Within the Department I have also held the role of Director of Postgraduate Research and Director of Education. Prior to Durham, I worked as a Programme Director and research fellow in Social Policy at the University of York, where I also completed my PhD. This focused on the role of the voluntary sector in providing support for young people excluded from mainstream education.

Prior to entering academia, I worked within policy and practice roles, mostly with and on behalf of young people. As a professionally qualified Youth Worker, I taught on the Masters in Youth and Community Education for the University of Wales. I have also held Officer level positions in both youth and play work within different organisations including a Local Authority Youth Service, voluntary sector organisations and a Youth Offending Team, including managing a team of 35 staff. My policy roles have included as a Senior Policy and Partnerships Officer in North Yorkshire, working at county and regional levels and providing research and policy advise to a senior MP. I draw upon this diverse experience within my academic roles in both research and teaching.

My research interests are in young people's experiences of marginalisation and youth policy; youth justice; domestic and sexual violence; and the experiences of women in prison. I am committed to working with innovative and participatory methodologies, with experience of PAR, visual, arts-based, creative, biographic and longitudinal approaches.

I am particularly interested in:

• Youth transitions, including in the areas of: youth justice and international comparative experiences, with an emphasis on policy and community approaches.
• Domestic abuse and sexual violence, including: at festivals, multi-agency working and programmes for young people.
• Women and prison, including experiences of: specialist sexual violence services in prison, transition to the community, housing and homelessness upon release and education.

Having taught across a very wide range of modules across the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Sociology and Criminology programmes, I currently convene the third year module ‘Youth in Crisis – Young People, Crime & Justice’ and convene one of the three prisons as part of our Inside-Out Prison Exchange Programmes.

We are the first University outside of North America facilitating the programme, taking groups of third year undergraduate and Masters criminology students (Outside students) into HMP Durham, HMP Frankland and HMP Low Newton to engage in a module on criminal justice with a group of men and women in each prison (Inside students). Aimed at breaking down the barriers between those on the inside and the outside, we facilitate all students to engage in dialogue as equals, using the unique critical pedagogical approach of Inside-Out. Collaboratively, we co-facilitate Think Tanks at HMP Frankland and HMP Low Newton, which has resulted in a developing research interest in working participatorily with incarcerated men and women on issues that affect them.

I am currently a member of the Management Group for PORSCH (Prison and Offender Research in Social Care and Health) North East; an Editor of YOUNG (Nordic Journal of Youth Research), and a member of the British Sociological Association's Youth Studies Group.

I suprevise a number of PhD students, including several to succcessful completion and welcome enquiries from potential PhD students in the fields of young people, crime, justice, marginalisation, violence and abuse and policy are very welcome.

Authored book

• Grace, S., O'Neill, M., Walker, T., King, H., Baldwin, L., Jobe, A., Lynch, O., Measham, F., O'Brien, K., & Seaman, V. (2024). Criminal Women: Gender Matters. (1). Bristol University Press

Chapter in book

• Verity Fee, P., Iris, A., King, H., O’Brien, K., & Measham, F. (2022). Women’s biographies through Prison. In Criminal Women: Gender Matters. Bristol University Press
• Bows, H., King, H., & Measham, F. (2020). Conceptualising safety and crime at UK music festivals. In L. Platt, & R. Finkel (Eds.), Gendered violence at international festivals (86-104). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429344893-7
• Bows, H., King, H., & Measham, F. (2020). Conceptualising safety and crime at UK music festivals: A gendered analysis. In L. Platt, & R. Finkel (Eds.), Gendered Violence at International Festivals An Interdisciplinary Perspective (86-103). Routledge
• O’Brien, K., Meahsam, F., & King, H. (2017). University students and prisoners learning collaboratively. In P. Crane (Ed.), ife Beyond Crime. Lemos Crane
• King, H. (2015). Young people and the predictability of precarious transitions. In L. Foster, A. Brunton, C. Deeming, & T. Haux (Eds.), In defence of welfare 2 (143-145). Social Policy Association
• King, H., & Roberts, B. (2015). Biographical research, longitudinal study and theorisation. In M. O'Neill, B. Roberts, & A. C. Sparkes (Eds.), Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative Applications (106-123). Routledge

Journal Article

• Disney, T., Crossley, S., King, H., Phillips, J., Robson, I., & Smith, R. (online). Family Hubs and the vulnerable care ecologies of child and family welfare in austerity. The Geographical Journal, https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12505
• MacDonald, R., King, H., Murphy, E., & Gill, W. (2024). The COVID-19 pandemic and youth in recent, historical perspective: more pressure, more precarity. Journal of Youth Studies, 27(5), 723-740. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2022.2163884
• Gangoli, G., Donovan, C., King, H., & Dutt, A. (2023). Understanding gender and sexuality: The hidden curriculum in English schools. Review of Education, 11(3), Article e3440. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3440
• Bows, H., King, H., & Measham, F. (2023). Perceptions of safety and experiences of gender-based violence at UK music festivals. Journal of Gender-Based Violence, 7(1), 74-92. https://doi.org/10.1332/239868021x16439111624553
• O'Brien, K., King, H., Phillips, J., & Dalton, P. A. K. (. O. T. D. U. I.-O. C. (2022). ‘Education as the practice of freedom?’ – prison education and the pandemic. Educational Review, 74(3), 685-703. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2021.1996335
• King, H., Crossley, S., & Smith, R. (2021). Responsibility, resilience and symbolic power. Sociological Review, 69(5), 920-936. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026120986108
• MacDonald, R., & King, H. (2021). Looking South: What can Youth Studies in the Global North learn from research on youth and policy in the Middle East and North African countries?. Mediterranean Politics, 26(3), 285-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2020.1749815
• Bengtsson, T., Blackman, S., King, H., & Østergaard, J. (2021). Introduction to Special Issue. Distancing, Disease and Distress: The Young and COVID-19: Exploring Young People’s Experience of Inequalities and Their Resourcefulness During the Pandemic. Young, 29(4_suppl), S5-S10. https://doi.org/10.1177/11033088211032792
• King, H., Measham, F., & O’Brien, K. (2019). Building Bridges Across Diversity: Utilising the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Programme to promote an egalitarian higher education community within three UK prisons. International journal of bias, identity and diversities in education, 4(1), 66-81. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijbide.2019010105
• King, H. (2016). The Connection between Personal Traumas and Educational Exclusion in Young People’s Lives. Young, 24(4), 342-358. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308815627752
• King, H. (2016). A Comparison of Youth Policy in England and Wales under New Labour. Social Policy and Society, 15(3), 337-350. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1474746415000354

Report

• O'Brien, K., & King, H. (2023). Parental Rights in Prison Project. Durham University: NEPACS/Durham University
• King, H., & Jobe, A. (2020). Evaluation of RSACC SELFIE (Sexualisation, Exploitation, Love, Friendship, Information and Empowerment) Young People’s Sex and Relationships Project. [No known commissioning body]
• King, H., Westmarland, N., & Bellini, R. (2020). Evaluation of Durham County Council’s Domestic Abuse Awareness Project. [No known commissioning body]
• King, H., Crossley, S., Disney, T., Phillips, J., Robson, I., & Smith, R. (2020). Understanding Family Characteristics and Risk Factors Involved in Child Welfare Cases (Stockton Borough Council). [No known commissioning body]
• King, H., Butterworth, K., & Westmarland, N. (2019). An Independent Evaluation of Victim and Practitioner Views of the Durham Constabulary Checkpoint Programme. [No known commissioning body]
• Westmarland, N., King, H., & Burrell, S. (2016). Evaluation of Durham County Council Approach to Commissioning Domestic Abuse Services. [No known commissioning body]