Dr Bridget Harris

PhD in Criminology (Monash University)

Bridget is an interdisciplinary researcher and has published and presented her work in the areas of:

• domestic and family violence
• technology-facilitated violence, advocacy and justice administration in the context of domestic and family violence
• access to justice (including in regional, rural and remote areas, and postcode justice)
• legal advocacy
• Southern Criminology

She has been invited to advise police and legal bodies on family violence in regional, rural and remote communities (incidents and experiences; informal and formal responses; technology-facilitated violence and advocacy). Her work in these fields was heavily cited in and used to inform recommendations made by the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence. Her work on access to justice and rural criminology has informed other government and non-government inquiries as well as policy and practice reforms and recommendations, including in the recent review – The Justice Project – undertaken by the Law Council of Australia (focused on the state of access to justice in the nation).

Bridget competed her PhD thesis (Just Spaces? Community Legal Centres as Places of Law) at Monash University and was the School of Social Sciences candidate nominated for the Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for Excellence in a PhD thesis. She received the Bruce Mansfield Award for Outstanding Research in her Honours year, undertaken at Macquarie University (thesis: Chequered Traditions: the Redfern Riots, Race, and the Role of History; exhibition: Chequered Knights? The Anti-police Myth in Australia). In 2016 she received a scholarship to attend the competitive Australian Research Council Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellowship Mentoring Scheme. As an educator, she has also received staff and student nominated teaching awards.

Recently, Bridget has been awarded two esteemed Criminology Research Council grants. She is currently completing these projects: Spaceless Violence and Advocacy: Technology-facilitated Abuse, Stalking and Service Provision in Australia (with Dr Delanie Woodlock, Women’s Legal Service NSW and Professor Harry Blagg) and Reducing Crime and Incarceration Rates in Aboriginal Communities: The Impact of the ‘Yes I Can’ Adult Literacy Campaign (with Dr Jenny Wise, Associate Professor Bob Boughton, Adjunct Professor Jack Beetson and Dr Nickson). In 2018, with Dr Delanie Woodlock and ASSA fellows Professor Kerry Carrington and Hon. Marcia Neave, she won an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia grant to host a workshop on Technology and Domestic Violence: Experiences, Perpetration and Responses, with leading national academics, advocates and practitioners. Other (Australian Communications Consumer Action Network) funded research includes Domestic Violence and Communication Technology: Victim Experiences of Intrusion, Surveillance, and Identity Theft; Associate Professor Molly Dragiewicz, Dr Bridget Harris, Dr Michael Salter, Dr Delanie Woodlock, Women’s Legal Service Queensland and Women’s Legal Service New South Wales 2018-2019.

Bridget is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Criminology at the University of New England and a member of the QUT Ally Network.

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