Our Trustees

Professor Nancy Loucks OBE – Chair

Nancy is the Chief Executive of Families Outside, a Scottish voluntary organisation that works on behalf of families affected by imprisonment. Prior to this she worked as an Independent Criminologist, specialising in research on prison policy and comparative criminology.

She received her M. Phil and Ph. D. from the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and in 2012 was appointed as Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for Law, Crime and Justice.

Nancy has conducted extensive research into human rights issues in prison, female and young offenders, prison violence and protests, addiction, suicides and self-harm, violence risk assessment and management, the experience of offenders with learning difficulties and learning disabilities, homelessness amongst ex-prisoners, and the maintenance of prisoners’ family ties.

Her work on family issues includes: research into family participation in prisoner resettlement, studies of the role of Prison Visitors’ Centres and of the work of Family Contact Officers, research into young parents in prison, consultations with prisoners’ families, and international reviews of the literature on needs and services for prisoners’ families and on private family visits. She was a Trustee for the Visitors’ Centre at HMP Edinburgh for six years and an invited member of the National Advisory Body on Offender Management for the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice.