Dr Geoffrey Barnes is the Principal Criminologist and Deputy Director of the Strategic Insight Unit within the Metropolitan Police Service. Prior to coming to London, he served as the first-ever Director of Criminology for the Western Australia Police, and headed the agency’s Office of Applied Criminology. He has led multiple randomised controlled trials in policing and criminal justice, while also performing work on the actuarial forecasting of future criminal behaviour, the development of crime and anti-social behaviour over the life course, and the use of cost incentives to promote better outcomes for children in foster care. His research interests also include the use of restorative justice and cognitive behavioural therapy with criminal offenders, the effects of swift and certain sanctions on illegal behaviour, the connections between criminal justice involvement and mortality, and the employment of large data sets derived from official government systems.
He earned his Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Maryland, and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology in 2011. His most recent academic appointment was as an Affiliated Lecturer in Evidence Based Policing at the University of Cambridge, supervising students in the Police Executive Programme who were seeking their M.St. in Applied Criminology and Police Management. Prior to joining the faculty at Cambridge, he held previous appointments at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Maryland, and Australian National University.