Mr Tony Murphy

Professional biography

Tony Murphy took up the role of Staff Tutor within the Social Policy and Criminology group in September 2019, having worked as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Sheffield Hallam University from 2013, and prior to that, a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Westminster (2008 to 2013). He has also held teaching posts at various other institutions, worked as a Research Assistant within the Department of Social Policy at LSE, and has acted as external examiner or external validation panel member for eight universities in total (presently for Birmingham City University BA Criminology degrees). Tony has worked at the OU since 2007 in one form or another, when he began as a student enquiry and registrations advisor, and then subsequently a faculty assistant, and then a tutor. As a Staff Tutor, he manages clusters for DD105 and DD311, and he is on the module team for DD102. In addition to this, he has written book chapters and VLE for DD102 and DD215. Tony led the organisation and delivery of the 2021 BSC Annual Conference at the Open University. He currently serves on the University Senate.

Tony is studying for a D.Phil at Oxford, researching penal transportation from Britain to Australia, having previously completed an MSc at Oxford. Prior to that, he completed MSc and BSc degrees at LSE, and several postgraduate qualifications through the Open University. He also holds a postgraduate certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, with HEA / Advance HE Fellowship.

Research interests

Tony's research interests span the Social Sciences broadly, including criminological theory; critical criminological approaches; higher education; social inequalities, exclusion, and rights; penology; and history and crime. He has had work published across these areas. His main focus at present, is work on penal transportation. He has written a Criminology textbook for SAGE.