Hannah Smithson is Professor of Criminology and Youth Justice and Director of the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, at Manchester Metropolitan University and visiting fellow at the Centre for Young Lives.

Hannah is the co-convenor of the award winning Greater Manchester Youth Justice Partnership - a partnership between Man Met university and each of the 10 Greater Manchester youth justice services. The partnership has led to the creation of a transformative new framework: Participatory Youth Practice (PYP). PYP is the first framework to be co-created with justice-involved children based on their lived experiences. PYP has had an impact on youth justice practice, on national and international youth justice strategies, and, most importantly, on justice-involved children themselves.

Her research has been instrumental in shaping agendas in research and policy across the interconnected areas of: youth justice, participatory practice and youth violence. She is Chair of the Youth Justice Board’s Preventing Children from Exploitation Academic Network Group and sits on the Probation Chief Inspector's Expert Advisory Group on probation and youth justice.

Hannah has written extensively on the problematic reductionism of SYV to involvement in gangs. Her most recent publications explore the benefits and challenges of participatory practice with justice-involved children, and the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and serious youth violence.