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Staff Profile

Dr Gethin Rees

Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Background

Biography

I am interested in the intersection of healthcare and criminal justice, whether that is embodied in healthcare professionals who work in criminal justice contexts (e.g. police stations and prisons), or scientific and/or medical experts presenting evidence in criminal trials.  As a result my research sits at the intersection of the sociology of science and technology, medical sociology and socio-legal studies. I am Principal Investigator on the ESRC Standard Grant "What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare?", the Degree Programme Director for the Sociology Programme and in 2022-23 will be assisting with teaching on the Stage One undergraduate module "Crime and Inequalities".

Prior to joining Newcastle University I held an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009-2010) and was Principal Investigator on an ESRC Small Grant (2010-2011), both carried out at the University of Edinburgh; following the completion of the small grant I became a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton (2011-2015).  More recently I successfully applied (as PI) to the ESRC Standard Grant scheme to fund a project exploring the delivery of healthcare in police custody suites titled "What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare?".  Prior to this, I received a Wellcome Trust Seed Award Grant for the project "Police Custody Nursing: Ethical, Social, Policy and Professional Challenges".  I hold a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from the University of Southampton.  I have also held Visiting Fellowships at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Department of Sociology, Trent University; and School of Law, National University of Ireland in Galway.  I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the British Sociological Association, and an Editor for the journal Social Theory and Health..  

Google scholar: Click here.

Research

Research Interests and Expertise

I am predominantly interested in the ways that medicine is employed in legal decision-making contexts and have followed this interest through multiple research projects: the role of doctors (otherwise known as Forensic Medical Examiners) in the examination of a person reporting a rape or sexual assault; a study of the introduction of nurses into the forensic investigation in sexual assault cases, in particular comparing the novel Forensic Nurse Examiner role in England and Wales with the more established Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner in Ontario, Canada; the role of sleep medicine in sexual assault cases where the accused does not deny the assault but claims to have no recollection of the event, as they were sleepwalking at the time; a Wellcome Trust Seed Award investigating the role and work of nurses in police custody suites; and most recently was part of a research team who successfully applied to the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to fund the development of a network of forensic medical professionals working in rural areas of Ontario and Scotland.. At the heart of all of these studies are questions concerning the boundaries between medicine and the law and the ways that those boundaries are maintained and negotiated; questions about the ways that 'real rape' stereotypes inform (and are in turn supported) by forensic practices; and the ways that disagreements in knowledge claims are resolved.

Latest Projects

What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare?

Context At present, there is no clear standard for healthcare provision in police station custody suites governing the level of care expected by those detained. Healthcare providers are expected to work within the standards outlined by their own professional bodies; however, these are vague, and no clear standard exists for detention staff, who perform most custody healthcare. This is troubling due to the high rate of persons in police custody with mental health and substance abuse concerns and the rate of deaths in custody; both these rates are unequally distributed along ethnicity lines. It also stands in contrast to other parts of the criminal justice system (for instance prisons), where an equivalence standard, i.e. an expectation that persons detained in prison will receive healthcare equivalent to those at liberty, is the norm. There are two common explanations the absence of such a standard: police custody is a law enforcement space; and persons are only detained for a few hours, meaning that they can access traditional healthcare upon release. Traditionally, healthcare in police custody is understood as resolving emergencies (including sending those that cannot be treated in custody to hospital) and ensuring that detainees are fit to be interviewed. However, the high rate of persons who are detained during a mental health crisis, as well as the 'chaotic lifestyles' of those detained, means that the healthcare needs of detainees in police custody spaces are increasingly important.

Aims and Objectives As a result of these changes, this project aims to develop knowledge about the healthcare practices of police custody staff (police officers, detention officers, and healthcare providers) in order to inform an equivalence standard and provide guidance for its implementation into custody work.

The project will ask four key questions:

  • 1) How do custody staff (police and healthcare) interact with detainees, and how do these interactions impact detainees' experiences of health and wellbeing in police custody? How do detainees' observable characteristics (age, body size, skin colour, gender) influence these interactions?
  •  2) How do police and healthcare staff in custody interact with each other, and what is needed to achieve optimal multiagency working and deliver equivalence in healthcare? 
  •  3) What role does the age and space of police custody environments play in the delivery of healthcare?
  •  4) What health information about detainees is accessed, recorded, managed, and shared within police custody; how is this done, and how is the information secured?

To answer these questions, we will carry out the following social science research methods:

  • Up to 500 hours of observations in four police custody suites
  • Semi-structured interviews with 60 custody staff and 40 detainees  
  • Audits of 1,600 police custody risk assessment files 
  • Interviews with 20 police custody desk sergeants about their risk assessment procedures 

Potential Benefits The chief outcome of the research will be a policy brief outlining what an equivalence standard in police custody would include and how it could be implemented. We expect that this will include advice on the interactions between detainees and staff (police, civilian, and healthcare), the forms of information that detainees receive and the ways in which they receive it. In addition, we also expect to comment on the interactions between staff in custody, especially as they discuss detainees across professional boundaries. For instance, the transfer of personal information about a detainee between staff should be highly confidential, and so we would introduce guidance on the handling of such information in order to maintain patient confidentiality. It is expected that the production of an equivalence standard that works with current custody suite practice will improve healthcare outcomes for those who attend police custody, while also reducing the potential for deaths in custody.

Inaccessible Care: An international forum on sexual assault services in rural Canada and Scotland

The three objectives of this project are:

  1. Provide a forum for rural sexual assault care providers and related professionals to collectively assess common barriers to sexual assault forensic services in rural communities in Canada and Scotland, and develop a series of recommendations to address these.
  2. Provide a forum for an intersectoral and international knowledge creation, exchange, and dissemination on sexual assault services between providers and scholars.
  3. Establish an international research team for a long term research project on rural sexual assault services in Canada and Scotland.     

To meet these objectives, this project involves several knowledge exchange and mobilization activities:

  1. One-day events in Waterloo, Ontario and Glasgow, Scotland involving sexual assault service providers and scholars
  2. A project website with a Slack Chat platform for continued international dialogue between service providers in Canada and Scotland following the two events.
  3. A short documentary video, executive summary, and academic publication highlighting key insights generated during the events.
  4. A one-day research collaboration meeting with sexual assault scholars from Canada and the United Kingdom to coordinate a collaborative publication and future research activities, including a SSHRC Insight Grant application to fund a project on rural sexual assault care.

International Networks

I am a co-founder of the Comparative Analysis in Rape Research Network (CAiRRN), an interdisciplinary collection of scholars interested in the treatment of rape victims by criminal justice personnel.

PhD Supervision

Current Supervision

Gemma Molyneux - Ethnographic exploration of the ways girls’ relationships shape their consumption of science discourses 

Oscar Daniel - Towards Gender Inclusive Healthcare: Improving Transgender Healthcare Education Amongst Medical Students

Gabriella Mwedzi - Forgotten Women: An Intersectional Investigation into Black Christian Responses to Intimate Partner Violence in England and Wales 

Kelvin Chu - Police Encounters: Perception and experience from People with Mental Illness 

Sarah Connelly - How does vulnerability act as a mechanism for support and how is this constructed through policy and practice with the police

Previous Supervision

Angela Plessas - Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Exploring the social construction of a contentious diagnostic category

Melissa Whitaker - Love Apptually - An analysis of how heterosexual users construct, negotiate and use dating apps

Neil MacEwan - Responsibilisation, Rules and Rule-Following Concerning Cyber-Security: Findings from small business case studies in the UK (University of Southampton)

I would be interested in supervising PhD research in any of the following areas:

  • Sociology of the Forensic Sciences
  • Science and Technology Studies
  • Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
  • Medical Sociology (especially Sociology of Diagnosis or Medical Professions)
  • Gender-Based Violence (especially investigations into the criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault)



Teaching
My main administrative task is Degree Programme Director for L300 Sociology and so am responsible for the overall delivery of that programme.  As well as the DPD role, I presently teach on the UG module "Crime and Inequalities". 
Publications