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Jane has recently worked as a Research, Policy, Advocacy and Legal Consultant, having completed her PhD in Law at UCC on the topic of 鈥淐onnected Corrections and Corrected Connections: Post-release Supervision of Long Sentence Male Prisoners鈥 in December 2019. This research was co-funded by the Irish Research Council and the Probation Service under the employment based PhD scheme.
During her PhD, Jane made many on matters related to crime and penal policy including on the development of a criminal justice strategy, the draft youth justice strategy and the Joint Oireachtas Committee鈥檚 work on sentencing and penal reform. She also took the initiative to organise events aimed at raising public and political awareness of the connectedness of seemingly disconnected social and policy issues (such as maternity services, early years supports, housing, education, social welfare, etc) and the impact of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on brain structure and function, health and behaviour, including addiction and criminality.
Jane has worked as a researcher in the area of criminal justice, penal policy and social justice since 2005. As Research and Policy Officer at IPRT she produced high quality research, developed policy papers, edited a legal bulletin summarising prison related legislative change and case-law and contributed to campaigning and engagement with the Oireachtas, the legal profession, the academic community, the judiciary, other domestic NGOs and international human rights bodies.
Jane has spoken before the UN Committee against Torture on human rights issues in prison, the Justice Sub-Committee on Penal Reform on proposed bail reform, at the Fair Trials鈥 Expert Seminar on Pre-trial Detention in London and the Bail and Jail event at Harvard Law. She has delivered on trauma including at the Public Health Scotland research conference on ACEs and Tusla鈥檚 Prevention, Partnership and Family Support conference in December 2018.
Jane hosts a podcast called since September 2017 and won a Justice Media Award in the best local radio show/podcast category for her documentary series 鈥淗umanising Human Rights鈥 on Ireland鈥檚 second periodic review under the UN Convention Against Torture in Geneva in 2017.
During lockdown, Jane began recording a special YouTube series of Law and Justice called with many interviewees addressing the subject of attachment, the harmful impact of childhood adversity, embodied trauma and structural inequity, and the importance of cultivating safety and relational health for individual and societal wellbeing