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Biography
Laura submitted her PhD in October 2025. In it, she explored the impact of previous military service on prison officers in England and Wales. Laura looked specifically at the continuity of military culture, identity, masculinity, and the emotional impact of deployment experiences on ex-military prison officers on their work. Laura produced an article about the emotional impact of deployment experiences on prison officers in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.
Alongside her PhD, she worked as a research assistant on various projects at the University of Oxford, including a project with Prof. Mary Bosworth in which she co-developed a staff survey for private sector custodial officers who transport, detain and deport immigrants and co-produced a report and an academic article. Before submitting her PhD, Laura worked as a Research assistant on the Vulnerable State Project at the University of Warwick, producing a report about the findings.
Laura also has some teaching experience, having taught 'Theories of Crime' and 'Dealing with Drugs: Control and Intoxication' at Oxford Brookes University to undergraduate law students in 2023, an 'Introduction to Psychology' course for a summer school programme at the University of Cambridge for the past 3 years, and guest lectures at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford University, and Regents University (London).
Laura is currently a research associate on a European Research Council funded project called 'REgulating Criminal justicE Detention' (RECEDE), led by Prof. Philippa Tomczak, in which she researches the regulation of deaths in criminal justice detention, with particular attention to the intersection of race, class, and gender.
Expertise Summary
(Ex-military) prison officers
prisons and prison abolition
race and gender
regulation of criminal justice detention
Teaching Summary
My teaching interests and expertise is in: Theories of crime, Drugs and Intoxication, qualitative methods (NVivo), Prisons and Prison staff, Psychology (particularly Social and Forensic Psychology)
Recent Publications
LAURA HAAS, 2025. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 31(4), 332鈥�347
MARY BOSWORTH and LAURA HAAS, 2025. Criminology and Criminal Justice.