ABOUT

Background

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I was born and brought up in a close-knit poor working class area of Liverpool (Anfield), the second eldest of five children. My mother grew up in inner-city Toxteth, Liverpool, while my father, a passionate and deeply committed Trade Unionist came over to Liverpool from Ireland when he was 20. Sadly, he died of a heart attack aged 46, when I was twelve years old. The tragic loss of my father, who was such an influential and gifted man, placed our family at risk physically, financially and psychologically, but this adversity provided a painful ‘lived experience’ that provided insight into the struggles and harshness of poverty, class discrimination and social exclusion, that has forever shaped my approach to life.

Disenchanted and disengaged with the rigidity, brutality and conformity of ‘education’ at the local comprehensive school, that seemed more of a silo to contain and brutally control its 1,200 male only pupils, I gave up my aspirations of attending university to study Art, and left aged 16 with few qualifications. However, I retained my strong interest in social welfare, justice and equality and secured employment at Liverpool Social Services in 1974 with an ambition to ultimately become a social worker.

Employment provided an excellent foundation for negotiating a difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood, while the local government funded day-release study (ONC & Cert PA) helped me to realise the benefits of lifelong adult education. After moving through the ranks of a number of administrative and managerial posts in Social Services I  left management to pursue career in social work when I joined the Merseyside Probation Service and later qualified as a social worker/probation officer at Liverpool University in 1983.

In the mid 1980s I worked at the ‘coalface’ as a drugs worker at a time when the country was overwhelmed by the ‘heroin epidemic‘ and was instrumental in conceptualizing and promoting an alternative ‘risk reduction’ approach (Buchanan & Wyke 1987) challenging the dominant abstinence approach. Our risk reduction philosophy was adopted by the Merseyside Probation Service in a new drug policy document. As a founder member of one of the largest multi-agency community drugs teams in the UK (the South Sefton Drugs Team) – along with community psychiatric nurses, social services counsellors, a psychiatrist, administrator and two other probation staff our coordinated approach offered a full range of harm reduction services: free needle exchanges, free condoms, methadone and heroin maintenance prescribing, injectable prescribing, prison relapse prevention, access to detox beds, acupuncture, residential rehabs and counselling.

I left the Probation Service to carry out research and publishing as Lecturer in Probation Studies at Liverpool University, then Senior Lecturer in Social Work at University of Central Lancashire (England) and then Glyndwr University (Wales) where I was appointed Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology. In 2011 pursuing a lifestyle change we moved to Aotearoa New Zealand where I was Programme Director of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology Victoria University of Wellington.

Throughout my career I have always maintained a strong interest in the interplay between: inequality; crime; problematic drug use; and drug policy/practice. I’ve published widely and addressed numerous international conferences on these issues, acted as expert assessor for international journals and worked as a Consultant and Independent Expert for the UNODC.

I retired in January 2016 but my passion and interest in social justice and human rights continues.

Julian Buchanan, CPA, DipSW, MA, PhD, FHEA.

Editorial Assessor

• Specialist Assessor: Criminology & Criminal Justice (Sage)
• Specialist Assessor: Addiction Research and Theory (Informa)
• Specialist Assessor: International Journal of Drug Policy (Elsevier)
• Specialist Assessor: Journal of Youth Studies (Routledge)
• Specialist Assessor: Policy & Politics Journal (Policy Press)
• Specialist Assessor: Journal of Social Policy (Cambridge Journals)
• Specialist Assessor / Ex-Deputy Editor: Probation Journal (Sage Publications)
• Editorial Advisory Board Member: British Journal of Community Justice
• Series Editor: Issues in Criminal & Community Justice Monographs (ICCJ)

External Advisor

• Independent Expert for UNODC, Vienna, Austria
• Consultant, UNDOC, Vienna, Austria
• External Examiner for Addiction Studies, Trinity College, Dublin
• External Examiner for the MA Criminal Justice, Liverpool John Moore’s University
• External Examiner for PhD Viva Keele University ‘Social capital, probationers and drug interventions’
• Independent Scientific Opinion Health Research Board (Ireland) An Bord Taighde Sláinte ‘Social reintegration and drug use’
• PhD Supervisor and Examiner
• Independent Scientific Opinion, Department of Health (England) Policy Research Programme, ‘Early Exit: Estimating and explaining early exit from drug treatment’
• External Assessor, Hope University, 5 year review, BA Criminology
• External Assessor, Hope University, 5 year review, MA Criminal Justice
• HSCSR Studentship Award Scheme External Referee, Northern Ireland Research & Development Office

Details

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• Julian Buchanan CPA, CQSW, DSW, MA, FHEA, PhD
  
• Email: julianbuchanan@gmail.com
• Podcasts: https://t.co/DxTaLTYt6j
• Academia: http://vuw.academia.edu/JulianBuchanan/Research_Interests
• Twitter: @julianbuchanan
• Online Mag: Drugs, Society, Harm Rights & Justice
• Facebook: Drugs, Society, Harm Reduction & Human Rights
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julian_Buchanan
• Mastodon Mastodon

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