Stalking: Preventing Murders in Slow Motion
Laura Richards is an internationally recognized expert and award-winning victims' advocate in the fields of domestic violence, stalking, sexual violence, risk assessment, and homicide. After a decade of analyzing violent crime at New Scotland Yard, she became the violence adviser to the National Police Chiefs Council. Trained by world leaders as a criminal behavioral analyst at the Behavioral Analysis Unit, National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI and New Scotland Yard, Richards has applied her psychology degrees to analyze violent crime from a behavioral and preventative perspective. She has a BSc in Psychology and Sociology and an MSc in Forensic and Legal Psychology, with a background in intelligence-led policing. She places the victim’s voice at the center of her work, was the architect of the stalking and domestic violence legislation in the UK. She has won numerous awards for her pioneering work.
In 2013, Richards launched Paladin, the world’s first National Stalking Advocacy Service following the highly successful All Party Parliamentary Stalking Law Reform Campaign which she spearheaded, and which led to stalking becoming a criminal offence in 2012. Paladin supports, advises and co-ordinates the response to better protect high-risk victims of stalking. More recently she spearheaded the Domestic Violence Law Reform Campaign, which resulted in coercive control becoming a criminal offense, advising on the new law and the statutory guidance in the U.K.
Richards is the lead author of the booked entitled ‘Policing Domestic Violence’ published by Oxford University Press and has also published other numerous papers and articles.
Read more about Ms. Richards and find out more about Paladin.