Honorary Grant Awarded to Julie Laursen
Julie Laursen from the Copenhagen Centre for Criminology (CCC) has received a grant from the Ellen and Hans Hermer foundation for her significant effort in research on punishment and prisons.
The foundation particularly emphasized her public dissemination of research, her close collaboration with practice, and her efforts to nuance understandings of prisons, prison staff, and incarcerated people. Her work was also recognized for contributing to a more informed penal policy that more accurately reflects everyday life in prisons.
Julie Laursen is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen and a researcher within the fields of prisons, punishment, and criminology. For more than a decade, she has conducted research in Danish, Norwegian, and English prisons, focusing on themes such as imprisonment and release, preventive detention, the social and moral dimensions of prisons, and the relationships between incarcerated people and prison staff. Her research particularly examines how penal policies are translated and negotiated in the everyday life of prisons, and the consequences these processes have for the people who live and work there.
On receiving the award, Julie Laursen states:
“First and foremost, I am proud of the recognition and very pleased that a relatively niche field such as prison research receives this kind of attention. My professiona work is shaped by a central conviction that science gains its value by engaging with the world it studies.
It is important that penal policy decisions are made on an informed basis. The recent penal reform is an example of how it sometimes remains an open question whether penal policy initiatives solve the problems prisons are facing or create new ones.
My work, following other prison researchers, shows that the ‘moral quality’ of prisons produces significant differences in wellbeing for both staff and incarcerated people.
I am therefore particularly pleased to be recognized for research that contributes to qualifying penal policy, which is often formulated far from the everyday realities of prison life. I am proud to contribute to a more nuanced public understanding of prisons and the people who live and work there.”