Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw is an Associate Professor in Policing at the University of Staffordshire with an established reputation in roads policing, driver behaviour, transport safety, police legitimacy, and procedural justice research. Her work focuses on understanding the behavioural, social, and organisational factors that influence decision-making, compliance, and interactions between police and the public, particularly within the roads environment.
Leanne completed undergraduate and postgraduate study in Psychology/Sociology before undertaking a PhD in Criminology at Keele University. Her doctoral research examined the role of driver education in addressing mobile phone use while driving and explored public resistance to the prohibition of distracted driving behaviours.
Since completing her PhD, she has led and contributed to a range of collaborative research projects examining driver behaviour, roads policing, police legitimacy, procedural justice, and evidence-based policing practice. Her work has involved close partnership working with police forces, policymakers, and practitioners to support the development of research-informed policy and operational practice.
She has extensive experience designing and delivering mixed-methods and ethnographic research, including observational, interview-based, and knowledge exchange projects. Her expertise has contributed to practitioner guidance, training development, policy consultation, and national discussions concerning policing priorities, fairness in policing, and driver distraction.
Alongside her research activity, she leads the Policing strand within the University of Staffordshire’s Centre for Crime, Justice and Security, where she supports the development of policing research within the University and builds strategic partnerships with policing organisations and external stakeholders.
She also contributes to curriculum development, undergratuate and postgraduate supervision across policing and criminology programmes, and teaches across the Policing degree programmes.
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.
Expertise
Mobile phone use by drivers Distracted driving Road safety education Community Speed Watch Fairness in Policing within custody Qualitative research
Research interests
- Roads policing
- Distracted driving
- Speeding
- Road safety education
- Traffic offending
- Procedural justice
- Police legitimacy
- Fairness in policing
- Ethnic/racial disproportionality in policing
- Social identity processes in policing
Publications
- Savigar-Shaw, L. and Wells, H., 2026. Enveloping the research evidence: How can policing deliver effective warning letters in a roads policing context?. Criminology & Criminal Justice, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/17488958261429821
- Briggs, G., Savigar-Shaw, L. and Wells, H., 2024. ‘Why aren’t you using Bluetooth?!’: Officer understanding of the dangers of handheld and handsfree mobile phone-use by drivers. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0032258X241309187
- Savigar-Shaw, L. and Wells, H., 2023. Policing Distracted Driving: Contemporary Challenges in Roads Policing. Springer Nature. Savigar-Shaw, L., Wells, H. and Briggs, G., 2022. Taking the right course: the possibilities and challenges of offering alternatives to prosecution for drivers detected using mobile phones while driving. Accident Analysis & Prevention https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2022.106710
- Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw, Dr Lauren Metcalfe, Ian Ackerley, Dr Rizwan Mustafa and Dr Laura Walton-Williams, 2022. written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee's inquiry, Policing priorities. (POP0066) Available online: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/113565/html/
- 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