Dr Aogan Mulcahy BA MA PhD
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Biography:
I graduated from University College Galway in 1987 with a BA degree in Sociology/Politics and English. After receiving a Postgraduate Diploma from the University of Stirling and an MA from Northern Illinois University, in 1992 I began the interdisciplinary doctoral programme in ‘Law and the Social Sciences’ in the School of Justice Studies at Arizona State University. I spent two years doing fieldwork in Belfast on debates about police reform, and received my PhD in 1998. I also worked as a criminology researcher at the University of Leeds (a study of magistrates’ courts) and Keele University (examining the relationship between policing and cultural change in England).
In 1999 I moved to UCD where I teach modules in sociology and criminology. My main research interests are in criminology, particularly issues of social order and social control. I am especially interested in how policing adapts to changing social and political environments, as well as how policing contributes to shaping those very environments. I have conducted research on policing in various jurisdictions, including analyses of the police reform debate in Northern Ireland, and the relationship between policing and cultural change in England. More recently, I have been working on several research projects looking as aspects of policing, crime and justice, including research on marginalisation, ethnicity, and joyriding and youth culture. At present, my main research focus is on the themes of continuity and change in the development of policing in Ireland.
