Chris Giacomantonio

DPhil Criminology

Chris Giacomantonio began his DPhil at the Centre for Criminology under the supervision of Professor Ian Loader in 2009. His doctoral project examines how public police units work with one another inter- and intra-organizationally.  For this project he completed fieldwork and interviews with multiple police agencies in the Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada from September 2011 to February 2012.  Alongside his thesis work, Chris has been co-teacher of the MSc Qualitative Methods option at the Centre for Criminology, and currently does learning technologist work for the Law Faculty and others in the university.  He also convenes the Police and Policing Research Discussion Group through the Centre for Criminology, which holds fortnightly discussions on various issues of police research during term time.

Chris's broader research interest is to understand how we conceptually distinguish ‘new’ policing from ‘traditional’ policing, and which distinctions are analytically useful in understanding how citizens relate to the state across space and time.  He has also developed an interest in the normative and theoretical implications of multijurisdictional police practice.  He has previously worked as part of research teams studying topics including Canadian policing, municipal governance and strategic planning, feminism in Canada, and young offenders.

Chris is a member of Wolfson College, and currently holds a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) Doctoral Scholarship. He completed his Master of Arts degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS, Canada in 2009, where his research was an ethnographic account of foot patrol policing.  He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology from Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada completed in 2005. He lives in Oxford with his wife Rachel and son Jacob.