DR CAITLIN HUGHES

Senior Research Fellow, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia

Dr Caitlin Hughes is a criminologist and applied illicit drug policy scholar, who works as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Australia. Her research focuses on 1) evaluating and informing illicit drug laws; 2) evaluating and informing criminal justice policies (including alternatives to arrest); and 3) monitoring trends in drug trafficking and drug markets. Throughout 2015-2016 she led an Australian Research Council Discovery Project which has examined the impacts of policing on the incidence of drug use and selling at outdoor music festivals and licensed entertainment precincts in Australia, using a large national survey of over 4000 regular patrons in the night time economy and a prospective study that monitored over a three month period the real-world police encounters and drug use practices of 36 residents as they “went out in Sydney” to festivals, clubs and pubs. Findings from this study and the implications for policy and practice will be presented at the Global Cities After Dark Conference.