Shelley Brown

Biography

Shelley Brown is an Associate Professor of forensic psychology within the Department of Psychology. She completed her PhD in 2002 at Queens University with a focus on dynamic risk assessment among adult male offenders. Following a 10-year research career with Correctional Service of Canada, she joined Carleton University in 2006. Since arriving at Carleton, Shelley’s program of research has shifted focus, and now concentrates on improving gender responsive services for girls and women in the criminal justice system using a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches. In 2006, Shelley co-authored, The assessment and treatment of women offenders: An integrated approach. Since then she has maintained an active program of research designed to improve the lives of girls and women who come in contact with the criminal justice system. Shelley has also receiving teaching achievement and mentoring awards since arriving at Carleton.

Research Interest

Shelley’s current program of research is dedicated to understanding female offending using integrated approaches. These approaches incorporate quantitative and qualitative methods as well as gender neutral and female-specific theories of crime. Currently, I am involved in 2 inter-related streams of research: (1) examining the reliability and validity of existing psychologically-based assessment tools that are commonly used to assess female offender risk and need areas but for which little female-specific research exists, and (2) developing new models of female criminal behavior using integrated theoretical and methodological approaches.