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I'm a criminologist working at the Applied Criminology and Policing Centre (ACPC) at the University of Huddersfield where I’ve worked for several decades. Rather unusually I am primarily interested in the violence and criminality of state actors, unlike state actors who are interested in the violence and wrong-doing of everyone else.

1. Police Brutality

My central research interest lies in the study of police brutality (police violence and associated malpractices) at protest events here in the UK and in short, how the police continually get away with it. Batoning protestors, charging mounted horses into a crowd and setting dogs on protestors (specifically trained to indiscriminately bite anyone in front of them) are of course very effective ways of achieving political repression. If you don’t like what people are doing, beating them into submission solves the problem, although this can prove periodically embarrassing when you simultaneously claim to only use ‘minimum force’ for lawful purposes. That such police violence continually reappears, as in Bristol currently, is testament to the failure of all previous so-called ‘police governance’, monitoring and reporting arrangements. Whilst much has been written on this subject by policing scholars, thus far no effective measures have been instituted to curtail these abuses. The reasons for this are complex, but lack of political will serving vested interests sits at the heart of it. Neither is there any signs for those compelled to pay for this ‘service’ that a democratically accountable police force is anywhere on the horizon. Applied research in this area can offer solutions.
I am also examining one element of ‘repression research’, state actors use of political technologies to manipulate, thwart and demobilise protest, and activists counter-measures (‘activist intelligence’ etc.) and their future direction and prospects –being some elements of my doctoral work.

** If you have been injured or witnessed police violence at recent protest events, be it Bristol or elsewhere in the UK, please do contact me (k.christmann@hud.ac.uk) as I would be very interested in speaking to you. **

My other research interests also concern violence in its different manifestations; political violence that the state does not like (i.e. ‘terrorism’) counter-terrorism measures, ‘radicalisation and extremism’ and also the impacts of social media use on youth violent crime. I am also examining the prospect ‘countervillance’ holds for generating greater accountability and transparency from state coercive institutions.

OTHER ONGOING RESEARCH

1. Contact zones: Understanding Recruitment Processes to Violent Extremism Across Comparative Domains

I am working with Professor Paul Thomas (PI) and colleagues at Deakin University, Melbourne (Professor Michele Grossman (PI), Dr Vanessa Barolsky and Dr. Vivian Gerrand) on a new international study examining contemporary recruitment processes to violent extremism, which is also being funded by the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin. The aim is to develop a new model that updates our understanding of how terrorist recruitment works across different ideological and technological platforms.

2. Social Media and Youth Violence Research
I am currently investigating the ways in which young people's social media use can shape and facilitate youth violence and other types of youth crime (with Maria Ionnaou). I am PI on this project, and working with our five YOT partners throughout West Yorkshire, funded by the West Yorkshire PCC's Office. Myself and colleagues at Kirklees YOT have recently set up the West Yorkshire YOTs Social Media and Violence Research Group.

3. Offender desistance and resettlement
Other strands of my work are more methodologically quantitatively based, for instance, I have used survival analysis (Kaplan-Meier curves) and formal concept analysis (with non-Euclidean spaces) to examine the effectiveness of short-term prison inmate enhanced resettlement on release ('re-entry') programmes (Christmann, 2007; Christmann & Wong, 2016).

TEACHING
I am the Module Leader for our second-year undergraduate module ‘Approaches to Policing’. I also teach various research methods courses and contribute our MSc courses in Criminology and International SecuritY.
I am currently supervising two doctoral students (with colleagues) in the following areas:
• A Trauma-Terror Nexus?: Life-Course Adversity Exposure and the Terrorist.
• How does the formulation of trust factor in the offender practitioner relationship, and can it be mobilised more effectively to reduce recidivism?

I have undertaken research for UK Government Departments (Home Office, OSCT/YJB) The European Commission, and a range of other funders (CREST, and various research councils). I have acted as an ‘Expert Evaluator’ for the European Commission on Preventing and Countering Violent Radicalisa-tion (€5 million budget), I am a member of the UK’s Commonwealth Secretariat’s Specialist Consultant Pool: Coun-tering Violent Extremism Unit, a reviewer for the Campbell Collaboration (Criminal Justice evidence synthesis) and I sit on the Critical Information and Infrastructures Security (CRITIS) Program Committee (HQ Offices, Paris). I also sit on the Editorial Board for The British Journal of Community Justice and am an Article Editor for the journal.

I support the international academic boycott of Israel, and the Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions (BDS) movement.

My latest publications are:
Wong, K.,& Christmann, K. Policing and Consent COVID-19 MetroPolis
Wong, K.,& Christmann, K. Opinion: Coronavirus: How can the police enforce social distancing and maintain public trust?
Wong, K., Christmann, K, Rogerson, M & Monk, N, (2020) "'Reality Versus Rhetoric': Assessing the Efficacy of Third Party Hate Crime Reporting Centres" International Review of Victimology 26(1): 79-95.