Jenny Norman joins the POP team

Before joining the team, Jenny worked at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) as Senior Lecturer. She was the Programme Director for the BSc (Hons) in Policing, a degree programme specifically designed for police professions. Jenny values her experience teaching police officers and members of police staff, particularly in the context of co-producing ideas through applying theory to student experiences of practice to generate critical discussions in policing. During her time at CCCU, she was also involved in several research projects from the Canterbury Centre for Police Research. She conducted research for the Police Federation of England and Wales exploring police officer perceptions of a number of College of Police initiatives, including Direct Entry. She was involved with a small-scale project that focused on police education. She has expanded this work for her PhD study, using a longitudinal research design to track police officer experiences of studying at degree level specifically in relation to them utilising their knowledge in practice.

Before joining CCCU, Jenny worked for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). Her experience within the MPS was both operational and strategic. However, Jenny was primarily involved with research and analysis throughout her 13-year career. She spent most of her MPS working as a Strategic Researcher where she employed social research methodologies to further understand strategic priorities for MPS Business Groups. She was involved in a number of research projects including a long term mixed methods approach to explore issues around rape and sexual violence, a process evaluation on neighbourhood policing, a qualitative study on the role of analysis and a project that gleaned young people’s perceptions of the police to further explore police engagement strategies.

Having worked within the profession in a research capacity and as an academic delivering a programme to practitioners, Jenny recognises the importance of research knowledge being transferable and transparent to practice. In addition, she is committed to ensure that practitioners voices are represented in research to ensure their experiences are heard within the policing narrative.  

Jenny is thrilled to join the Centre as a Senior Lecturer with the Policing Organisation & Practice team. She will be developing the third-year curriculum that feeds into the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship, which is currently delivered for new police officers in North Yorkshire Constabulary. She is also very excited to be involved in the research projects developed by CPRL and has research interests in the professionalisation of the police and the role of police education.