Dr Katherine McLachlan
Senior Lecturer
College of Business, Government and Law
Katherine has extensive experience working in the criminal justice system. She held lead policy and project roles in the SA Attorney-General’s Department, forensic mental health, Child Protection, Department for Correctional Services, Equal Opportunity Commission and SA Parliament. She was an Intelligence Analyst with the South Australia Police and the Sexual Assault Research Analyst at the Australian Institute of Criminology. She has also worked as the Quality and Research Manager for Victim Support Service. In 2015, she was appointed by the Minister for Correctional Services as the victim representative on the Parole Board of South Australia, and was re-appointed in 2018 and 2021.
Katherine completed an Honours Degree and a Research Masters in Laws at Flinders University, exploring police responses to women who had been raped. She also has an Honours degree in Psychology, exploring the prediction of violent recidivism by surveying people in prison. In 2010, she completed her Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice and is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia. Katherine has a PhD in Law, and was a 2018-2021 RTPd PhD Scholarship recipient.
In 2017, Katherine established UniSA’s Bachelor of Criminal Justice. For this work, she was awarded the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) Excellence in Teaching award (2019) with collaborators, Rebecca Medhurst, Tracey Johnson and Ruth Fazakerley.
I am particulary interested in teaching topics related to victimology, trauma-informed criminal justice, sentencing and desistance, gendered violence and sexual assault, and evidence-informed criminal justice practices (rather than the over-use of incarceration).
I am currently involved with the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) and was previously the South Australia representative. I am a member of the International Society of Therapeutic Jurisprudence as well as the World Society of Victimology.
In 2021 and 2022, I was the Secretary for the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL) SA Branch. In 2022 I joined the Board of OARS, Community Transitions.
I am also a co-founder of the Magnolia Project.
Sturt Rd, Bedford Park
South Australia 5042
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