Dr Ben Laws

BA MSc MPhil PhD

Position Fellow Junior Research Fellow
Subject areas Criminology
School Humanities and Social Sciences
Department Institute of Criminology
Email Bwrl2@cam.ac.uk
Twitter @Ben_Laws
Department link Institute of Criminology

Ben completed his doctoral research in Criminology here in Cambridge and has been a member of Wolfson College since 2013. He has a background in psychology and strong interests in imprisonment, emotions, meditation and spirituality.

Ben studied English (BA) at Leicester, Psychology (MSc) at St. Andrews and Criminology (MPhil, PhD) here at Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has professional experience working in a range of mental health settings across the UK and US, mainly supporting those with autistic spectrum conditions (ASCs) and young adults with trauma histories. Ben’s PhD examined the emotional dimensions of prison life and investigated the ways in which male and female prisoners regulated their emotions. This involved trying to understand the psychological experience of going through a prison sentence.

Research Interests

Ben has been awarded a three-year ESRC New Investigator grant to explore the emotional dimensions of solitary confinement in England and Wales. The project extends and develops his previous research on imprisonment, by focusing on prisoners emotions at the margins. It starts with the interesting observation that while solitary confinement is damaging for many this outcome is does not appear to be universal. Ben hopes to understand how managing emotions in particular ways, or learning specific coping strategies, leads to differential developmental outcomes (e.g. more ‘healing’, or more ‘destructive’ pathways).

What's on

A picture of the Item and Food donate and take during Wolfson's Freshers Week 2021

Item&Food donate'n'take 2022

18/06/2022 at 09.00

A circular economy at Wolfson. A collaboration of the Wolfson Green Society, Student Association and Interdisciplinary Sustainability & Conservation Hub.

Art exhibition: 'Kill or Cure'

25/06/2022 at 10.00

Lethal or life-giving? Wolfson's exciting contemporary art exhibition explores the potential of animals, plants, and substances from the natural world to ‘Kill’ and/or ‘Cure’ (open to the public, Saturday and Sundays, 10am - 5pm).