Dr Miranda Bevan
Staff details
Miranda's research focuses on vulnerable suspects and defendants in the criminal justice process.
Dr Miranda Bevan is a lecturer in law, specialising in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice.
Miranda practised as a criminal barrister (2 Hare Court, Chambers of Jonathan Laidlaw QC, 2000-2012) before coming to academia. She also spent two years at the Law Commission as lawyer with responsibility for the Unfitness to Plead Report (published in 2016) and has worked as a policy associate at the Howard League for Penal Reform.
Miranda gained her PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2019, where she was subsequently an ESRC post-doctoral fellow. She remains a visiting fellow of the Mannheim Centre.
Miranda's research focuses on vulnerable suspects and defendants, police custody, effective participation and unfitness to plead.
Academic qualifications
- PhD Social Policy (Criminology) (LSE) 2019
- MSc Criminal Justice Policy (LSE) 2013
Research interests
Miranda's doctoral research explored the experience of children and young people detained as suspects in the police station in England and Wales. Her work broke new ground as the first substantial empirical study in England and Wales focusing on the child’s perspective of police detention. She frequently presents her research to government departments, policing networks and non-governmental organisations.
In 2019, Miranda worked with the Howard League for Penal Reform and Just for Kids Law in the creation of a step by step guide for practitioners representing looked-after children at the police station (accessible at https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Joint-guide-children-in-care-for-web.pdf).
In 2020, she worked with the Independent Custody Visitors Association to support their national thematic focus on children in police custody, producing a range of training videos and resources (accessible at https://icva.org.uk/children-and-young-people-in-custody-part-1-the-research/).
She is currently collaborating with the National Appropriate Adult Network in the creation of an animated video resource for family members supporting children in police custody as appropriate adults.
Miranda also continues her research interests in effective participation and unfitness to plead.
Featured publications
The pains of police custody for children: a recipe for injustice and exclusion?
Bevan, M., British Journal of Criminology (forthcoming)
2020:
Time to dispense with the mute of malice procedure
Bevan, M., Ormerod, D., and Magor, S., Criminal Law Review, 10, 912-930
2020:
Young suspect perspectives: An exploration of the factors affecting the uptake of legal advice by children in police custody
Bevan, M., Criminal Law Review, 8, 686-706
2020:
Making it work? The case of Roberts and uneven progress in the reform of unfitness to plead procedures
Bevan, M., Criminal Law Review, 3, 215-222
Grants and awards
2015: LSE PhD Studentship
2018: ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship
Publications and research outputs
Article
Bevan, Miranda. 2022. The pains of police custody for children: a recipe for injustice and exclusion? The British Journal of Criminology, 62(4), pp. 805-821. ISSN 0007-0955
Bevan, Miranda; Ormerod, David and Magor, Samantha. 2020. Time to dispense with the mute of malice procedure. Criminal Law Review, 2020(10), pp. 912-930. ISSN 0111-135X
Book Section
Bevan, Miranda. 2024. Conclusion - Rethinking the Use of Police Custody for Children. In: Miranda Bevan, ed. Children in Police Custody: Adversity and Adversariality Behind Closed Doors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 308-345. ISBN 9780192855497
Thesis
Bevan, Miranda. 2019. Children and young people in police custody: an exploration of the experience of children and young people detained in police custody following arrest, from the perspective of the young suspect. Doctoral thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science
Professional projects
In 2019-2020, Miranda spent 12 months as a Policy Associate at the Howard League for Penal Reform, where she led on a project to reduce the imprisonment of women.
The project has produced two policy briefings:
Reset: Rethinking remand for women (https://howardleague.org/publications/reset-rethinking-remand-for-women/), and,
For their own protection?: The case for repeal (on behalf of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System) (https://howardleague.org/publications/prison-for-their-own-protection-the-case-for-repeal/).