Taylor completed his undergraduate degree at Durham University, where he was an active socialist and involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
On leaving Salford, he became the Principal of Van Mildert College, Durham until he retired due to illness.
In 1999 he published his final book, Crime in Context after becoming Principal of Van Mildert College at Durham University, a role he stepped down from a year prior to his death due to his ill health.
[5] In Crime in Context, he sets out his relationship to the left realism project, saying that his involvement was 'more tangential' than with Critical Criminology, and that The continuing legacy of that realist influence in this text are evident in two important respects.
I have been concerned, first, 'to take crime seriously'... Secondly, I share with left realism a commitment to a 'realist' (as distinct from idealist) strategy with respect to the actual analysis of 'crime' (as both behaviour and mass-media representation)[6]Taylor, Ian and Laurie Taylor.