Rate My Professor Jessica Jacobson

Professor Jessica Jacobson is Professor of Criminal Justice at Birkbeck, University of London, affiliated with the School of Social Sciences and the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), where she served as Director from 2013 to 2024. She earned her PhD from the London School of Economics in 1996, researching ethnic and religious identities among second-generation British Pakistanis, which was published as Islam in Transition: Religion and Identity Among British Pakistani Youth (Routledge, 1997). Jacobson began her career as a Home Office researcher before working as an independent researcher and policy consultant. She joined ICPR in 2011 and has since designed and led numerous funded research projects on criminal justice topics. In March 2026, she was appointed as the academic member of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales.

Jacobson's research specializations encompass prisons and the use of imprisonment, sentencing, criminal investigations and prosecutions, lay participation in judicial proceedings, and coroners' investigations and inquests. Her empirical work employs qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups, and observations, informing policy and practice. Key projects include the ESRC-funded Voicing Loss (2021-2024), examining bereaved people's participation in inquests, yielding reports, briefings, and a book chapter; the Nuffield Foundation-funded Participation in Courts and Tribunals, resulting in a 2020 edited volume, policy tools, and articles; an international study on imprisonment in ten countries funded by Open Society Foundations and Porticus; and projects on digital forensics, language barriers, youth courts, and online fraud. Major publications feature Inside Crown Court: Personal Experiences and Questions of Legitimacy (Policy Press, 2015, with Gillian Hunter and Amy Kirby); Imprisonment Worldwide: The Current Situation and an Alternative Future (Policy Press, 2016, with Andrew Coyle, Helen Fair, and Roy Walmsley); and Participation in Courts and Tribunals: Concepts, Realities and Aspirations (Bristol University Press, 2020, co-edited with Penny Cooper). She has authored or co-authored extensive book chapters and journal articles on sentencing, vulnerability in courts, anti-social behaviour, and procedural justice.