Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw

Senior Lecturer

Health, Education, Policing and Sciences

I am a Lecturer in Policing with an academic and research background. With an interest in understanding factors that influence human behaviour, I began my undergraduate degree in Psychology and Sociology in 2009 at Keele University. I then continued with a master’s degree in Psychology before progressing to a PhD in Criminology. My PhD research was jointly funded by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire and Keele University, and centred around a road safety education course being delivered by Staffordshire Police. As part of the project, I explored the role of driver education in tackling mobile phone use by drivers and resistance to its prohibition.

Since my PhD I have been involved in a number of research projects focusing on mobile phone use by drivers, police legitimacy and procedural justice. I worked as a research assistant in a project aimed at bringing together academics and practitioners working to tackle the issue of mobile phone use by drivers, delivering knowledge exchange consultations and supporting practitioners to develop research-informed practice. I have also worked as a research fellow in an ethnography of police fairness and procedural justice. Working closely with local police forces, I collected interview, observational, and other data to understand how officers interact with members of the public and the role that procedural justice plays in those interactions. It is envisaged that the findings will be implemented into training packages around fairness in policing.

I have a passion for working with partners such as the police in providing knowledge exchange; encouraging others to be involved in the collection of research data and to work with them to implement effective practice and learning that can be taken from analysis of that data. Sharing knowledge and academic-practitioner collaboration is key.

Professional memberships and activities

Member of Roads Policing Academic Collaboration

Academic qualifications
  • PhD ‘Preventing mobile phone use while driving: appreciating the equivocal nature of identity, safety and legality in an uncertain world’, Keele University.
  • MSc Child Social Developmental Psychology, Keele University.
  • BSc (joint hons) Psychology and Sociology¸ Keele University.

Research interests
  • Procedural justice
  • Police legitimacy
  • Fairness in policing
  • Social identity processes in policing
  • Roads policing
  • Mobile phone use by drivers
  • Distracted driving
  • Road safety education

Publications

Savigar-Shaw, L., Radburn, M., Stott, C., Kyprianides, A., & Tallent, D. 2021. Procedural justice as a reward to the compliant: An ethnography of police-citizen interaction in police custody. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2021.1960332

Stott, C., Radburn, M., & Savigar-Shaw, L. 2021. Crowd Theory, Communication and Policing. In Giles, H., Maguire, E., & Hill, S. (Eds). The Handbook of Policing, Communication and Society. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.

Kyprianides, A., Bradford, B., Stott, C., Savigar-Shaw, L., Radburn, M., & Beale, M. 2021. Policing the COVID-19 pandemic: Police officer well-being and commitment to democratic modes of policing. Policing and Society. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2021.1916492

Wells, H., Briggs, G., & Savigar-Shaw, L. 2021. The inconvenient truth about mobile phone distraction: understanding the means, motive, and opportunity for driver resistance to legal and safety messages. The British Journal of Criminology. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab038

Kyprianides, A., Savigar-Shaw, L., Beale, M., Radburn, M., Stott, C. & Tallent, D., 2020. Policing in the COVID19 space: Authority, legitimacy and adaption in a time of ambiguity. Policing insight. Available online: https://policinginsight.com/features/analysis/policing-in-the-covid-19-space-authority-legitimacy-and-adaption-in-a-time-of-ambiguity/

Kyprianides, A., Stott, C., Beale, M., Savigar-Shaw, L., Radburn, M., Wiggett, I., & West, O. (2020). From the Bottom to the Top: Complications in developing local Civil Contingency responses to COVID19. The Municipal Journal.

Radburn, M., Savigar, L., Stott, C., Tallent, D., & Kyprianides, A. 2020. How do police officers talk about their encounters with ‘the public’? Group interaction, procedural justice, and officer constructions of police identity. Criminology and Criminal Justice. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820933912

Stott, C., Bradford, B., Radburn, M. & Savigar-Shaw, L. eds., 2020. Making an Impact on Policing and Crime: Psychological Research, Policy and Practice. Routledge.

Savigar, L. 2019. Preventing mobile phone use while driving: appreciating the equivocal nature of identity, safety and legality in an uncertain world. Keele University, Staffordshire. Doctoral thesis, available online: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/6079/1/SavigarPhD2019.pdf

Briggs, G., Wells, H.M. and Savigar, L. In-car technology: Are we being sold a false sense of security? The Conversation, May 2019.

Wells, H.M. and Savigar, L. 2019. Keeping up, and keeping on: Roads policing, risk and the law-abiding driving offender. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 19(2), 254-270.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1748895817738555

in the UK for Quality Education

Sustainable Development Goal 4, Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023

for Career Prospects

Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023

for Facilities

Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023

for Social Inclusion

The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023

of Research Impact is ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Very Considerable’

Research Excellence Framework 2021

of Research is “Internationally Excellent” or “World Leading”

Research Excellence Framework 2021

Four Star Rating

QS Star Ratings 2021