From 1975 to 1978, Shapland was a
Home Office research fellow in criminology at
King's College, London. She then moved to the
University of Oxford where she was a research fellow at the Centre for Criminology Research from 1978 to 1988. While at Oxford she was also a junior research fellow (1979–1983) and then research fellow (1938–1988) at
Wolfson College, Oxford. Shapland joined the
University of Sheffield in 1988. She was a senior research fellow at its Centre for Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies from 1988 to 1989. She then joined the Department of Law, where she was a lecturer from 1989 to 1991 and a
senior lecturer from 1991 to 1993, before being made Professor of Criminal Justice in 1993. She was head of the School of Law between 2009 and 2013. She was appointed to the Edward Bramley Chair of Criminal Justice in 2013. ==Selected works==