Dr David Tait

Contact Dr David Tait

Position

 

Senior Lecturer

 

Qualifications

  • BA (Canterbury)
  • MA (Hons) (Canterbury)
  • PhD (London)

Research Interests

 

Dr David Tait is a criminologist, with a special interests in how courts work.  Research areas include judicial rituals and court processes - particularly comparisons between French and Common Law styles of justice; crimes of the powerful, war crimes and international justice; juries, including how they deal with new forms of evidence; and rights of vulnerable people. With training in history, sociology, social statistics and political science, he received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, writing a thesis on the political, social and economic development of a new town on Merseyside.

 

Teaching

 

David teaches subjects about how law responds to political imperatives and social needs, and different ways of thinking about crime and punishment. Units include: Young people and crime, Violence, the Nation-state and Terrorism, Cyber-crime, Comparative Criminology and Law and Society. Most of these are available either as law electives or as part of elective majors or minors in other degrees, such as Applied Psychology, Journalism and Arts. 

 

Professional Memberships

 

David is a chief investigator on three large research projects:

  • Juries and Interactive Visual Evidence (Australian Research Council)
  • Mental Health Tribunals (Australian Research Council)
  • Juror Satisfaction and Management (Criminology Research Council)

He is co-ordinator of the Court of the Future Network, which is a group of academics and practitioners with an interest in justice environments, including architecture, security and technology, and with a special interest in juries. The group has run several national conferences on these topics, as well as special research workshops or training activities.