Liam is a research-active criminologist with advanced quantitative skills and extensive experience in designing, delivering, and evaluating large-scale studies. His work focuses on schools and crime, school based behavioural interventions and Situational Action Theory.
He/him
Previously, Liam has worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Middlesex on the REAL-DEP project, evaluating the impact of a school-based drug education programme in secondary schools across the United Kingdom using a range of quantitative and qualitative data and analysis. He is also a consultant on the SATNAV project, where a number of schools are applying findings from his PhD research (and the work of others) to improve and evaluate their behaviour management policies.
Earlier in his career, he worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Hertfordshire, where he designed and conducted the Hertfordshire Stop and Search project. This involved close collaboration with Hertfordshire Constabulary to collect and analyse qualitative and quantitative data exploring issues of disproportionality and discrimination in police stop and search practices.
His doctoral research examined the causes of problem and criminal behaviour in secondary schools. This project adapted and applied Situational Action Theory to the school context, producing two sets of hypotheses that specified the mechanisms of causation and their place in the overall causal chain. These hypotheses were tested using data from the School and Community Environment Survey (SCES), which I co-designed and conducted with a fellow PhD student. Involving over 40 schools and pupil referral units in London, Hertfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, the study surveyed more than 1,000 pupils and teachers—making it one of the largest school crime surveys ever conducted in the UK.
Liam currently teaches on the following modules:
McSharry, L., Addo, K.O. & Brown, S. 2023. Report into Stop and Search Disproportionality in Hertfordshire April 2020 – March 2023 in Partnership with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire
McSharry, L. 2022. Disentangling School Climate: Analysing the Causes of Problem and Criminal Behaviour in Schools through the Theoretical Lens of Situational Action Theory. PhD Thesis.