Simon is a Professor at University of West London, England. He currently works in the Research Centre for Cybercrime and Security and specialises in urban street gangs, dangerous dogs, acid attacks, hate crime and youth crime.

Prior to joining UWL, Simon was an SL at Middlesex University for six years where he was Programme Leader for BA Criminology (Policing) and joint Head of the Urban Neighbourhoods Research Unit (UNRU). In 2017 Simon was awarded Teacher of the Year at Middlesex Unviersity.

He has a wide range of practitioner and professional experience in crime reduction and community safety including working for the Home Office as Regional Crime Advisor (London). He has an extensive history in urban regeneration and criminology having worked on over 2,000 social housing estates in the UK. He has written and produced numerous community safety audits, strategies and reports and in 1999 was co-inventor of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs).

Simon was a principal trainer in hate crime and diversity at the Crime Academy, Metropolitan Police Service Police Training College, and remains an Independent Advisor on hate crime and diversity to the MPS Commissioners.

Simon’s recent work has focussed on urban street gangs in the UK. In 2005-08 he organised the Lambeth Gangs Commission and managed London’s largest anti-gangs project (The Phoenix Project). He was also involved in the London Five Borough Alliance Gangs project.

Since 2012 Simon has published four books, Unleashed: the phenomena of status dogs and weapon dogs (2012); Unleashed (2014) reprinted with new chapter; and his latest theoretical exposition on gang crime, The Street Casino: survival in violent street gangs (2014). This work was awarded the Frederick Milton Thrasher Award for 2014 for Superior Gang Research. Simons latest book is Harding, S. and Palasinki, M. (2016) Global Perspectives on Youth Gang Behaviour, Violence and Weapon Use, IGI Global, Hershey, PA, USA.  

Simons latest book is currently in development, called Trapped: County Lines, exploitation and drug dealing amongst urban street gangs.  This will be published by the Policy Press in 2019.

Simon is currently a Trustee for the charity Growing Against Violence, (GAV) and he travels extensively for international conferencing on gangs and group offending.