Gethin Rees

I am interested in the intersection of healthcare and criminal justice, whether that is embodied in healthcare professionals who work in criminal justice contexts (e.g. police stations and prisons), or scientific and/or medical experts presenting evidence in criminal trials. As a result my research sits at the intersection of the sociology of science and technology, medical sociology and socio-legal studies. I am Principal Investigator on the ESRC Standard Grant "What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare?", the Degree Programme Director for the Sociology Programme and in 2022-23 will be assisting with teaching on the Stage One undergraduate module "Crime and Inequalities".

Prior to joining Newcastle University I held an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009-2010) and was Principal Investigator on an ESRC Small Grant (2010-2011), both carried out at the University of Edinburgh; following the completion of the small grant I became a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton (2011-2015). More recently I successfully applied (as PI) to the ESRC Standard Grant scheme to fund a project exploring the delivery of healthcare in police custody suites titled "What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare?". Prior to this, I received a Wellcome Trust Seed Award Grant for the project "Police Custody Nursing: Ethical, Social, Policy and Professional Challenges". I hold a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from the University of Southampton. I have also held Visiting Fellowships at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Department of Sociology, Trent University; and School of Law, National University of Ireland in Galway.

I am predominantly interested in the ways that medicine is employed in legal decision-making contexts and have followed this interest through multiple research projects: the role of doctors (otherwise known as Forensic Medical Examiners) in the examination of a person reporting a rape or sexual assault; a study of the introduction of nurses into the forensic investigation in sexual assault cases, in particular comparing the novel Forensic Nurse Examiner role in England and Wales with the more established Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner in Ontario, Canada; the role of sleep medicine in sexual assault cases where the accused does not deny the assault but claims to have no recollection of the event, as they were sleepwalking at the time; a Wellcome Trust Seed Award investigating the role and work of nurses in police custody suites; and most recently was part of a research team who successfully applied to the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to fund the development of a network of forensic medical professionals working in rural areas of Ontario and Scotland. At the heart of all of these studies are questions concerning the boundaries between medicine and the law and the ways that those boundaries are maintained and negotiated; questions about the ways that 'real rape' stereotypes inform (and are in turn supported) by forensic practices; and the ways that disagreements in knowledge claims are resolved.