Dr John McDaniel
Lecturer in Crime / Criminal JusticeResearch Overview
Dr John McDaniel is a lecturer at Lancaster Law School. His research interests lie at the intersection of criminal justice, human rights, data technologies and EU criminal law.
John's research focuses, particularly, on human rights monitoring, liberty, transnational repression, policing dissidents and police accountability. He is currently examining how data technologies are shaping deprivations of liberty, transnational repression, monitoring and accountability.
John is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He lectures on criminal law, civil liberties and human rights.
Research Interests
John has been involved in research projects worth over £1m and has received funding from bodies such as the AHRC and the Irish Research Council. He has published articles and chapters on the use of AI within policing, the detention of people with mental health problems, discrimination/ disproportionality, cultural competency, wellbeing and police accountability in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, the European Union, Southern Africa and the United States. He has submitted written evidence to the House of Lords and his work has been cited in The Economist. Books he has co-edited include Predictive Policing and Artificial Intelligence (Routledge) and The Development of Transnational Policing (Routledge).
He has recently been awarded funding from the AHRC as a co-investigator for a project called 'SmartSafeSigning: Deaf Inclusion in Domestic Violence and Abuse Support' (2025 - 2027). The project examines police interactions and interviews with deaf victims of domestic violence and associated communication and interpreting technologies. He is also a member of the EU Cost Action CA22128 'Establishing Networks to Implement the Principles on Effective Interviewing for Investigations (Implemendez)' (2023 - 2026).
He is a member of the Society of Legal Scholars, the British Society of Criminology and the European Criminal Law Association.
Qualifications
PhD Law, 2015, University of Kent
MA Human Rights in Criminal Justice (1st Class), 2010, University of Limerick
External Roles
John regularly undertakes voluntary monitoring work. In 2019, he was a founding member of the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) for the West Midlands Police (WMP) Professional Standards Department (WMP PSD). WMP is one of the largest police forces in England, serving over 3 million people. He has been the independent chair of the IAG since 2023.
John served as a member of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for one of the largest prisons (HMP) in the UK for over five years (2016 - 2022).
In preparation for Brexit, he worked with the National Crime Agency (NCA) as a 'Special', advising on EU cross-border policing arrangements affecting 43 police forces (2018 - 2020).
John has served as an External Examiner for universities such as Edge Hill University and Canterbury Christ Church University, and was an External Subject Specialist for Ulster University among others.
He has peer-reviewed journal articles and book proposals for Bristol University Press and other publishers, and was an Associate Editor for the journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice (the official journal of the British Society of Criminology) (2020 - 2022).
Career Details
John was previously a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader at the University of Wolverhampton (2014 - 2023), and a visiting scholar at Tilburg University and the University of Copenhagen.