Dr Lynsey Black

    Law

    Lecturer
    Lecturer / Assistant Professor

    New House
    205
    (01) 474 6567

    Biography

    Lynsey researches in the areas of gender and punishment, the death penalty, historical criminology, post-colonial criminal justice, and media and culture.

    Through summer 2019, Lynsey was a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt, researching the project: 'The Mandatory Death Sentence in Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados: Colonial Legacies and Sovereign Symbols.'

    Lynsey is currently collaborating on a British Academy-funded project with Dr Lizzie Seal (University of Sussex), Dr Bharat Malkani (Cardiff University), Dr Florence Seemungal (University of the West Indies) and Dr Roger Ball (University of Sussex). The project is titled: 'Reforming British law and policy on the global death penalty.'

    In 2019, along with Prof Claire Hamilton, Lynsey was commissioned to produce a report on confidence in criminal justice systems by the Department of Justice and Equality. This report was published in December 2019.

    Previous collaborations include a public engagement and knowledge exchange project undertaken with Dr Lizzie Seal (University of Sussex) and Dr Florence Seemungal (University of the West Indies/University of Oxford), and with the United Nations Development Programme in Barbados. This focused on criminal justice reform and reform of the death penalty regimes in Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.

    Lynsey has published in Punishment and Society, Law and History Review, and the Social History of Medicine, and is co-editor of the collection, Law and Gender in Modern Ireland, with Hart Publishing. She is currently working on her first monograph, Women, Murder and the Death Penalty in Ireland, 1922-64, with Manchester University Press.

    From 2016 to 2018, Lynsey was an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin. Her postdoctoral research was a comparative, transnational project on capital punishment in Ireland and Scotland from 1864 to 1914.

    Lynsey holds an LLB Law from Trinity College Dublin, and an MA in Criminology from Dublin Institute of Technology. She received her PhD from the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin in 2016. Her doctoral research focused on women and the death penalty in post-independence Ireland and was aided by the award of a research bursary from the Irish Legal History Society and an Arthur Cox Fellowship.

    Lynsey has previously lectured at Dublin Institute of Technology, and has worked with the Irish Penal Reform Trust and the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice.

    Research Interests

    Gender and Punishment
    Women Who Kill
    Death Penalty
    Death Penalty in the Caribbean
    Historical Criminology
    Post-Colonial Criminal Justice
    Media and Culture

    Research Projects

      Project Role Funding Body / Program Description Start Date End Date Award (€)
    Reforming British Law and Policy on the Global Death Penalty PI British Academy / 2360102 Despite the UK’s stated opposition to the death penalty worldwide in terms of law and policy, there are significant ways in which it is arguably complicit with the death penalty in some retentionist countries. This highlights a substantial international challenge: in order to uphold international human rights, UK law and policy on the global death penalty must be reformed. This project draws on law, history and criminology to examine how the UK exported the death penalty to other countries, such as Ireland, in the colonial era and how it fails to enact full opposition in the present. It also examines historical and contemporary UK-based campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide. The project aims to identify how law and policy should be reformed to end complicity with the death penalty and the most effective campaigning strategies for global abolition. 01-FEB-19 01-JUL-20

    Edited Books

      Year Publication
    2019 Law and Gender in Modern Ireland: Critique and Reform
    Lynsey Black and Peter Dunne (Ed.). (2019) Law and Gender in Modern Ireland: Critique and Reform Oxford: Hart. [Details]

    Peer Reviewed Journals

      Year Publication
    2019 'Public opinion on crime, punishment and the death penalty in Barbados'
    Lynsey Black, Lizzie Seal and Florence Seemungal (2019) 'Public opinion on crime, punishment and the death penalty in Barbados'. Punishment and Society, Online First [DOI] [Details]
    2018 '‘On the other hand, the accused is a woman’: Women and the Death Penalty in Post-Independence Ireland'
    Lynsey Black (2018) '‘On the other hand, the accused is a woman’: Women and the Death Penalty in Post-Independence Ireland'. Law and History Review, 36 (1):139-172 [DOI] [Details]
    2018 'The Pathologisation of Women Who Kill: Three Cases from Ireland'
    Lynsey Black (2018) 'The Pathologisation of Women Who Kill: Three Cases from Ireland'. Social History of Medicine, Online First (Online First) [DOI] [Details]

    Book Chapters

      Year Publication
    2020 'Detecting the Murderess: Newspaper Representations of Women Convicted of Murder in New York, London, and Ireland, 1880-1914’'
    Rian Sutton and Lynsey Black (2020) 'Detecting the Murderess: Newspaper Representations of Women Convicted of Murder in New York, London, and Ireland, 1880-1914’' In: Alison Adam (eds). Constructing Forensic Objectivity from 1850. London: Palgrave. [Details]
    2016 'Impact of the Imposition of the Death Penalty on Families of the Convicted in the Caribbean'
    Florence Seemungal, Lizzie Seal, Lynsey Black (2016) 'Impact of the Imposition of the Death Penalty on Families of the Convicted in the Caribbean' In: Death Penalty and the Victims. New York: UN. [Details]
    2016 'Media, Public Attitudes and Crime'
    Lynsey Black (2016) 'Media, Public Attitudes and Crime' In: Deirdre Healy, Claire Hamilton, Yvonne Daly and Michelle Butler (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Irish Criminology. Abingdon: Routledge. [Details]
    2016 'Death Penalty and its Impact on the Professionals Involved in the Execution Process'
    Florence Seemungal, Lizzie Seal, Lynsey Black (2016) 'Death Penalty and its Impact on the Professionals Involved in the Execution Process' In: Death Penalty and the Victims. New York: UN. [Details]

    Other Journals

      Year Publication
    2019 'Justice, 2018'
    Lynsey Black (2019) 'Justice, 2018' Administration: Journal of the Institute of Public Administration in Ireland, 67 (1) :37-44. [DOI] [Details]
    2018 'Justice, 2017'
    Lynsey Black (2018) 'Justice, 2017' Administration: Journal of the Institute of Public Administration in Ireland, 66 (1) :31-46. [DOI] [Details]
    2018 'Murder, Capital Punishment, and the Irish in Scotland, 1864 to 1914'
    Lynsey Black (2018) 'Murder, Capital Punishment, and the Irish in Scotland, 1864 to 1914' The Irish Jurist, 60 :154-166. [Details]
    2017 'Justice, 2016'
    Lynsey Black (2017) 'Justice, 2016' Administration: Journal of the Institute of Public Administration in Ireland, 64 (1) :35-48. [DOI] [Details]
    2016 'Justice, 2015'
    Lynsey Black (2016) 'Justice, 2015' Administration: Journal of the Institute of Public Administration in Ireland, 63 (4) :49-60. [DOI] [Details]
    2015 'The Representation of Offending Women in the Irish Press: A Content Analysis'
    Lynsey Black (2015) 'The Representation of Offending Women in the Irish Press: A Content Analysis' Irish Probation Journal, 12 :160-178. [Details]

    Published Reports

      Year Publication
    2019 An Evidence Review of Confidence in Criminal Justice Systems.
    Claire Hamilton and Lynsey Black (2019) An Evidence Review of Confidence in Criminal Justice Systems. Department of Justice and Equality, Dublin. [Details]

    Blog

      Year Publication
    2017 Male Jealousy & Questions of Sexual Honor: A Look at Historical Cases of Domestic Murder in Ireland.
    Lynsey Black (2017) Male Jealousy & Questions of Sexual Honor: A Look at Historical Cases of Domestic Murder in Ireland. Blog [Details]
    2016 The “worst of the worst?” Dangerous Women in Post-Independence Ireland.
    Lynsey Black (2016) The “worst of the worst?” Dangerous Women in Post-Independence Ireland. Blog [Details]

    Book Review

      Year Publication
    2018 Review of “Irish Women and the Vote: Becoming Citizens” by Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward.
    Lynsey Black (2018) Review of “Irish Women and the Vote: Becoming Citizens” by Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward. Book Review [DOI] [Details]

    Newsletter

      Year Publication
    2018 Doing Historical Criminology: A Case from Ireland.
    Lynsey Black (2018) Doing Historical Criminology: A Case from Ireland. Newsletter [Details]