Kirstin Anderson

Kirstin Anderson has taught for twenty-four years in schools, universities and prisons; she is a Lecturer in Criminology at Edinburgh Napier University. She has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and led the first empirical study to look at music education and music making in Scottish prisons. She has written about education and arts in prisons, public health and criminal justice, prison overcrowding and prison abolition. She edited ‘The Barlinnie Special Unit: Art, Punishment and Innovation’ (2025) and her most recent award was a Royal Society of Edinburgh Personal Fellowship (2026) to undertake research on the history of Scottish prisons as told through the voices of prisoners and prison staff. She runs book groups in HMP Shotts and the Lilias Centre in Scotland.