Dr Jackson Allen

School of Law

Lecturer in Law

Deputy Director of Employability and Enrichment Activities (Law Firm Liaison)

Staff photo of  Jackson L Allen
Profile picture of Staff photo of  Jackson L Allen
j.l.allen@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6754

Full contact details

Dr Jackson Allen
School of Law
CLG04
Bartolome虂 House
Winter Street
91直播
S3 7ND
Profile

I joined the University of 91直播 as a lecturer in February 2022. Before this, I was a lecturer at the University of York and also taught criminal law and evidence at the University of Edinburgh.

I am from the US originally, but have been living in the UK since 2013, when I moved from my home in Texas to Nottingham, where I spent three years at the University of Nottingham studying for an LLB and LLM in Human Rights Law. Following this, I moved to the University of Edinburgh to pursue my PhD, which I completed in 2022.

Generally, my research and teaching interests are in criminal law and the law of evidence, with a particular focus on theorising criminal procedure and bringing philosophical perspectives to bear on aspects of the criminal process which are under-theorised. For example, my PhD focused on the relationship between 鈥榬everse鈥 burdens of proof (i.e., those placed on the defendant) in a criminal trial and the presumption of innocence.

The issue of how to resolve the underlying tensions between these reverse burdens and the presumption of innocence is a typical example of the types of questions that interest me most: those which take the seemingly simple and mundane aspects of criminal procedure and ask what they are for, how they work, and how they ought to work.

Currently, my research is focussed on the structure of liability under the modern criminal law, and how this fits with our traditional thinking about the underlying principles of criminal liability and responsibility.

Qualifications
  • BA (Texas A&M),
  • LLB (Nottingham),
  • LLM (Nottingham),
  • PhD (Edinburgh)
Research interests

I am currently interested in the following topics:

鈥 The relationship between law and justice in the context of criminal law (and especially the question of whether the rule of law or justice should have priority here)
鈥 The Structure of Criminal Liability Under English Law
鈥 Criminal Law Theory and Theories of Punishment
鈥 The Justification for the Existence of Criminal Law and State Punishment
 

Publications

Journal articles

  • Allen J (2021) . The International Journal of Evidence & Proof, 25(2), 115-134. RIS download Bibtex download
Research group

I would be happy to supervise students working on the following subjects:

鈥 Criminal law
鈥 Evidence
鈥 Criminal procedure

Teaching interests
  • Criminal law
  • Evidence
  • Criminal procedure
  • Jurisprudence
Teaching activities
  • Criminal Evidence 
  • Theoretical Foundations of Criminal Law 
  • Dissertation (BA Criminology) 
Professional activities and memberships

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) - Advance HE

Member of the Society of Legal Scholars