John Pitts is Vauxhall Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Bedfordshire, and Visiting Professor of Criminology at the universities of Suffolk and Essex. He has worked as a school teacher; a street and club-based youth worker; a group worker in a Young Offender Institution and as a consultant on youth crime and youth justice to the Police and youth justice and legal professionals in the UK, mainland Europe, the Russian Federation and China.
In the past 12 years he has undertaken research on violent youth gangs and acted as a consultant and researcher on violent youth gangs to central and local government, police forces and ‘think tanks’; and as an ‘expert witness’ in cases of gang-related murder. He is author of Reluctant Gangsters: The Changing Face of Youth Crime (2008), Critical Realism & Gang Violence (2016) and The End of the Line? The Impact of County Lines Drug Distribution on Youth Crime in a Target Destination, in Youth & Policy (2018