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Professor Jill Peay is in the Department of Law at the London School of Economics. She is also a member of the Mannheim Centre for the Study of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Professor Peay's research interests include mental health law, decision-making and treatment of mentally disordered offenders. Recent publications include Mental Health and Crime (2011 Routledge), Decisions and Dilemmas: Working with Mental Health Law (2003) and ‘Pleading Guilty: Why Vulnerability Matters’ (2018 Modern Law Review).  

In 1998-9 she was a member of the Richardson Committee, established by the Department of Health to advise the Government about the necessary scope of reform to mental health legislation; and in 2008-9 a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Committee which looked at ethical issues in dementia.  She is currently a member of the Editorial Board for OUP’s Clarendon Studies in Criminology.  

She has conducted funded research, amongst others, for the Department of Health into the knowledge, attitudes and decision processes of mental health practitioners. She has also acted in a training and research capacity for the then Mental Disability Advocacy Centre’s work, based in Budapest, on Guardianship.