Professor Johnson is the Director of the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL.  He has worked within the fields of criminology and forensic psychology for two decades, and his research has explored how methods from other disciplines (e.g. complexity science) can inform understanding of crime and security issues, and the extent to which theories developed to explain everyday crimes can explain more extreme events such as riots, maritime piracy and insurgency.  His research has been funded by a variety of sponsors including the AHRC, ESRC, EPSRC, Home Office, UK police forces, the Department for the Environment & Rural Affairs (Defra), Department for Education & Skills (DfES), British Academy, and Leverhulme Trust.  As Director of the Dawes Centre for Future Crime, he is currently particularly interested in how technological change informs new opportunities for offending or approaches to crime prevention.

He has published over 120 book chapters and papers within the fields of criminology and forensic psychology in journals including Criminology, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Criminology and Public Policy, the British Journal of Criminology, and Law and Human Behavior. His work has been covered in the press including the Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/2647118), New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg19826541.000-sin-cities-the-geometry-of-crime.html
http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg18224473.300-mapping-the-path-of-crime-epidemics.html), and the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/may/06/science.highereducation), and featured in a BBC iWonder website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zqsg9qt).  He has guest edited two special issues of the European Journal of Applied Mathematics, an international journal concerned with Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis, has edited books on crime prevention and has co-authored three Problem Oriented Policing guides published by the US Department of Justice. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal Legal and Criminological Psychology, is an editorial board member of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.