Justice Focus

37: Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash with Prof Lamble

In this episode, Dr Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Lamble, Professor in Criminology and Queer Theory at Birkbeck, University of London, a leading scholar-activist at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and transformative justice. Lamble has spent decades working in community organising, prison abolition, and queer activism and has published extensively.

The conversation centres on Lamble's forthcoming book, Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash, a bold political intervention that traces how the rapid rise of anti-trans sentiment in the UK is not simply a culture war, but is deeply entangled with carceral politics: the idea that safety is best achieved through punishment, policing, and exclusion. Lamble unpacks the unique convergence of left and right actors behind the anti-trans movement, and why framing trans rights as a safety threat has proved so politically powerful.

We explore the mainstreaming of carceral feminism, its historical development and its troubling track record, and ask what the evidence actually tells us about whether prisons and legal reform deliver safety for survivors of gender-based and sexual violence. Spoiler: it doesn't.

But this episode doesn't stop at critique. Lamble sets out a compelling vision for transformative justice: one rooted in material safety, radical solidarity, and building collective infrastructures of care that include everyone, especially those society has deemed undeserving. We also reflect on how individuals and communities can act at interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels to contribute to genuine change.

Also - for every preorder of the book before 11th August 2026, Lavender Pages will distribute a free copy of Unsafe directly to LGBTQ+ prisoners.

This episode is essential listening for anyone thinking about feminism, trans rights, prison abolition, or what it really means to build a society where everyone is safe.

Prof Lamble | Birkbeck, University of London

Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash

Preorder via Lavender Pages: https://thecommonpress.shop/products/august-11th-unsafe-the-carceral-roots-of-the-anti-trans-backlash-preorder

Lamble's upcoming events page:

https://lamble.net/events

Article: Practising Everyday Abolition

Keywords: trans rights, anti-trans backlash, carceral feminism, transformative justice, prison abolition, queer theory, gender-based violence, radical solidarity, collective care, UK politics, Lamble Lamble, Unsafe.

Podcast researched & hosted by Dr Omar Phoenix Khan, University of Bath.

Theme music by SHEZ.

Why is a focus on racism so often missing from prison research, even when the evidence shows time and again its power to shape experience and outcomes?

In this episode, Dr Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Dr Jason Warr, Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Nottingham about his paper ‘Whitening Black Men’, winnerof the BJC's 2023 Article of the Year, which sets out how the entire architecture of "rehabilitation" in English prisons is built around an unstated norm of whiteness. This means that Black men are read as deviations from that norm by default, regardless of what they actually do. He traces this back through Gilroy's myths of Black criminality and through everyday moments: being told to "be less urban," being labelled gang-affiliated for associating with peoplefrom your own school.

In his working paper for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, written for the 25th anniversary of the death of Zahid Mubarek, Jason sets out five reasons racialisationremains marginal in British prisons research: epistemic ignorance, fear, marginality, conceptual problems, and whiteness itself.

This episode will interest anyone working in or thinking about racism in criminal justice, narrative criminology, the sociology of whiteness, prison ethnography, or research impact beyond the REF.

Read Jason's work:

Warr, J. (2026). Where is "race" in prison studies? Centrefor Crime and Justice Studies, Working Paper No. 9.

Warr, J. (2023). WhiteningBlack Men: Narrative Labour and the Scriptural Economics of Risk and Rehabilitation. British Journal of Criminology, 63(5),1091–1107.

Warr, J. (2020). 'Always Got to Be Two Mans': Lifers, Risk, Rehabilitation, and Narrative Labour. Punishment & Society, 22(1), 28–47.

Further reading:

Franko, K., & Lomell, H. M.(2025). Private economies of knowledge in criminal justice: Introduction to the Special Issue. Theoretical Criminology, 29(3), 257-267

Lammy, D. (2017). TheLammy Review: An independent review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System.

Phillips, C., Earle, R., Parmar, A. & Smith, D. (2020). Dear Britishcriminology: Where has all the race and racism gone? Theoretical Criminology, 24(3), 427–446

Zedner, L. (2025). Governing by think tank? From experts to political ideologues in UK criminal justice and security. Theoretical Criminology, 29(3), 268-287. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13624806251339617

Keywords: race, racialisation, whiteness, criminology, prison studies, rehabilitation, joint enterprise, epistemic ignorance, coloniality, prison ethnography, lived experience research, REF, impact.

Podcast researched & hosted by Dr Omar Phoenix Khan, University of Bath.

Theme music by SHEZ.

In this episode, Dr Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Professor Kate Gooch, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Bath, about her ethnographic research in young offender institutions and her recently published book Prison Violence: In Search of Recognition and Respect (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology).

Kate is one of the leading scholars of youth custody and prison violence in England and Wales. Her research explores the causes, forms and dynamics of harmful activity within custody, including violence, homicide, self-harm and organised crime, with a particular focus on the moral, social and cultural contexts in which harm is produced. She regularly presents her findings to HMPPS, the Youth Justice Board, the Ministry of Justice and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, and trains prison senior management teams.

The conversation covers Kate's concept of carceral capital as a richer alternative to hegemonic masculinity for understanding why young men in custody are violent. Moving beyond gender performance, carceral capital encompasses material display, custodial experience, physical presence and the survival strategies young people carry in from youth custody and the street. Kate's account of what the stockpiling of Jaffa cakes actually signals, or the significance of a handshake, is a small illustration of the analytical work only serious ethnographic fieldwork makes possible.

Kate reflects on what that fieldwork actually involves: embedded over many months across landings, adjudications, segregation, carol services and away days, doing what the officers called "loitering with intent." She is candid about the gender politics of conducting research in men's prisons as a woman, the concept of moral dualism that shapes her positionality, and why she is not, as she puts it, a total abolitionist, while making a clear case that the conditions in which young people are held are themselves an injustice.

The episode also examines the relationship between trauma and violence. Kate recounts a searing adjudication hearing in which a young man disclosed at the close of proceedings that a family member had just died in a crash. There was simply nothing in the infrastructure to meet that moment. This, she argues, is how distress becomes violence: not because these young men are defined by the worst thing they have done, but because custody forecloses every other form of discharge.

This episode will interest anyone working in or thinking about youth custody, prison violence, ethnographic methods and the politics of what counts as justice inside a sentence.

Read Kate's work:Gooch, K. (2026). Prison Violence: In Search of Recognition and Respect. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan.

 Doolan, C. & Gooch, K. (2021) Preventing prison staff assaults.

Gooch, K. (2020). “You’ve got a Hard Edge”: The Gender Politics, Complexities and Intimacies Undertaking Prison Research at the Edge. In Prison Stories: Women Scholars’ Experiences Doing Research Behind Bars.

Also mentioned:

Maguire, D. (2021) Male, Failed, Jailed : Masculinities and"Revolving-Door" Imprisonment in the UK - Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology (Referenced in episode) SeeEpisodes 9-10 with Dr David Maguire21: Prof. Alison Liebling - Appreciative Inquiry and the moral performance of prisons25: Prof. Ben Crewe - Understanding Life Imprisonment

Prof Kate Gooch | University of Bath

Keywords: youth custody, young offender institutions, prison violence, self-harm, carceral capital, hegemonic masculinity, ethnography, HMIP inspections, trauma, youth justice, moral dualism, custodial conditions, austerity, positionality, women in prison research.

Podcast researched & hosted by Dr Omar Phoenix Khan, University of Bath. Theme music by SHEZ.

Can changing the story we tell about crime actually change the policies that follow? In this episode, Dr Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Dr Janeille Zorina Matthews, multidisciplinary criminal justice scholar, Deputy Dean, and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, about her work at the intersections of criminology, law, storytelling, and social justice in the Anglophone Caribbean.

Dr. Matthews has written extensively on sexual violence in Antigua and Barbuda, examining how a cluster of high-profile cases in the early 2000s shaped public consciousness, behavioural patterns, and media representations of crime for years that followed. She reflects on what that moment revealed about how crime narratives form — and how reframing the discourse around sexual violence can open space for more constructive, survivor-centred conversations.

The conversation turns to Dr. Matthews' work on narrative change and crime policy, drawing on her article 'Creating the Demand for Better Crime Policy', in which she argues that Qualitative Frame Analysis (QFA) can be used as a methodological tool to interrogate "tough on crime" rhetoric — exposing how politicians, media, and other actors manufacture public consent for punitive approaches that often misrepresent the true nature of crime. Shifting those frames, she argues, is essential to creating the conditions for more effective and humane policies.

The episode also explores the persistence of colonial legacies in penal practices across the Anglophone Caribbean, the growing importance of Southern and decolonial criminologies in reimagining the discipline, and how Dr. Matthews' contribution to the UNDP's first Caribbean Human Development Report and her leadership of the UWI Rights Advocacy Project connect research to real struggles for human rights and decarceration.

This episode is for anyone interested in criminology, crime policy reform, the politics of narrative, and how the Caribbean is contributing vital new perspectives to global debates about crime and punishment.

Read Dr. Matthews' work:

• Matthews, J. Z. (2020). 'Creating the demand for better crime policy: Qualitative Frame Analysis as a vehicle for social transformation.' The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 59(3), 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12386
• Matthews, J. Z. & Robinson, T. (2019). 'Modern Vagrancy in the Anglophone Caribbean.' Caribbean Journal of Criminology, 1(4), 123–154.
• Matthews, J. Z. (2017). 'Social Constructions of Crime in Antigua and Barbuda.' In Joosen & Bailey (eds), Caribbean Crime & Criminal Justice: Impacts of Post-Colonialism and Gender on Crime. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Caribbean-Crime-and-Criminal-Justice-Impacts-of-Post-Colonialism-and-Gender-on-Crime/Joosen-Bailey/p/book/9780367888534
• UWI Rights Advocacy Project: https://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/law/staff-profile/dr-janeille-zorina-matthews/

Dr. Janeille Zorina Matthews | University of the West Indies, Cave Hill

Dr. Omar Phoenix Khan | @OmarPKhan | @Justice_Focus | https://www.justicefocus.org/

Keywords: Caribbean criminology, crime policy, narrative change, Qualitative Frame Analysis, colonial legacies, rape, sexual violence, decarceration, Southern criminology, Anglophone Caribbean, penal reform, storytelling for social justice, tough on crime, UWI Rights Advocacy Project, UNDP

What does it mean to hope when thesystem has already decided your fate?

In this episode, Dr Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Professor Harry Annison from Southampton Law School, about penal politics, the families of indeterminate-sentenced prisoners, and why storytelling is at the heart of how criminal justice systems change, or fail to.

Harry is one of the leading scholars of penal policy in England and Wales. His work sits at the intersection of criminology, law and political science, and draws on hundreds of interviewswith senior policymakers, practitioners, families, and people in the justice system. He has collaborated with the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform, and has completed multiple ESRC-funded projects including Rehabilitating Probation, a major longitudinal study of the re-nationalisation of probation services in England and Wales. His OUP monograph, Dangerous Politics, remains the definitive account of the politics of the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence.

In this conversation, Harry reflects on what drew him to parole and probation, the differences and unexpected similarities between interviewing elite policymakers and researching the families of those they govern. The episode focuses on his co-authored paper with Prof Rachel Condry, 'The Pains of Hope' (British Journal of Criminology, 2022), which examines the experiences of families of IPP-sentenced prisoners and their often extraordinary campaigns for justice.Harry explains how a sentence officially abolished in 2012 continues to imprison thousands, and what it costs the people who love them. The conversation also explores a thread running through much of Harry's work: the power of narrative and storyline in shaping, and sometimes distorting, criminaljustice policy. Harry also reflects candidly on his approach to writing and his experience as an editor across several leading journals.

This episode will interest anyone working in or thinking about penal reform, indeterminate sentencing, probation, policymaking, or the human costs of criminal justice.

Professor Harry Annison | SouthamptonLaw School

Key works discussed: Annison, H. & Condry, R. (2022). The painsof hope: families of indeterminate sentenced prisoners and political campaigning by lay citizens. British Journal of Criminology, 62(5), 1252–1269. doi:10.1093/bjc/azac039      Annison, H. (2015). Dangerous Politics: Risk, Political Vulnerability, and Penal Policy. Oxford University Press.

Annison, H., Burke, L., Carr, N., Millings, M., Robinson, G. & Surridge, E. (2023). Making good? A study of how seniorpolicy makers narrate policy reversal. British Journal of Criminology. doi:10.1093/bjc/azad054

Annison, H. (2022). The role of storylines in penal policy change. Punishment & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474521989533

Podcast researched & hosted by ⁠⁠Dr Omar Phoenix Khan⁠⁠,University of Bath.

Theme music by ⁠⁠SHEZ⁠⁠.

Why are some harms defined as crimes, while others are not? And who gets to decide?

In this episode, Omar sits down with Dr Lynne Copson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Open University, to explore the relationship between criminology and zemiology (the study of social harm), and to dig into her new edited collection, Crime, Harm and the State, co-edited with Dr Eleni Dimou and Dr Steve Tombs, published by Bristol University Press (2026).

This collection disrupts the boundaries of conventional criminology, offering a bold and innovative exploration of crime, state power and social harm across historical and global contexts. Bridging zemiology, governmentality studies,and decolonial theory, it examines how the colonial roots and ongoing dynamics of global capitalism perpetuate harm — particularly in the Global South. Through case studies spanning tourism, drugs, non-human animals, food, ecology, minoritized groups and migration, the collection asks whose experiences of harm are acknowledged, and how harm may be resisted.

We focus especially on Dr Copson's own chapter, Redrawing Borders: Crime, Harm and the State, in which she interrogates the ways in which scholarly knowledge is complicit in drawing borders and carving up the world — and argues that this isfar from a problem of the past. What are the unintended consequences of continuing with status quo scholarship?

Along the way, we also get into the necessity of hope, what utopia means, the politics of citations, and a slight obsession with avocados...

Key texts covered in our conversation:

Copson, L., Dimou, E. & Tombs, S. (eds.) (2026) Crime, Harm and the State. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

(We discussed Charter 14: Redrawing Borders: Crime Harm and the State)

Copson, L. (2022) ‘Finding hope in hopeless times’, in van Klink, B., Soniewicka, M. and van den Broeke, L. (eds.) Utopian Thinking in Law, Politics, Architecture and Technology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 19–37.DOI: 10.4337/9781803921402.00007  

Copson, L. (2021) 'Crime,Harm and Justice: The Utopia of Harm and Realising Justice in a "Good Society"', in Davies, P., Leighton, P. & Wyatt, T. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Social Harm. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72408-5_13

We also mention:

Alatas, S.F. (2024), The Coloniality of Knowledge and the Autonomous Knowledge Tradition. Sociology Compass, 18: e13256. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13256

Dimou, E. (2021) Decolonizing Southern Criminology: What Can the “Decolonial Option” Tell Us About Challenging the Modern/Colonial Foundations of Criminology? CriticalCriminology, 29, pp. 431–450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-021-09579-9

Podcast researched & hosted by ⁠Dr Omar Phoenix Khan⁠, University of Bath.

Theme music by ⁠SHEZ⁠.

Welcome back to part two of our conversation with Dr Tina Skinner.

In the first episode, we explored Tina’s powerful work on gender-based violence and asked a vital question: How do we do ethical, sustainable research in such a heavy, emotionally charged field?

In this second half, we shift gears to focus on Tina’s latest initiative, The Researcher Wellbeing Project — a project that dares to ask the questions most academics have never been invited to consider. What does it really mean to work day after day with emotionally challenging material? And what is that work doing to the researchers themselves?

Tina’s mission is clear: to improve the wellbeing of those carrying the emotional weight of this research. And she has a plan to make that happen.

We pick up our conversation with Tina reflecting — with her trademark honesty and vulnerability — on her autoethnographic work. From there, we dive into the realities that sit at the sharp intersections of gender, disability, and academic expectations.

And finally, we zoom in on the Researcher Wellbeing Project itself: what it’s uncovering, why it matters, and how it might just change the way we care for the people doing some of society’s most emotionally demanding academic work.

Researcher Wellbeing Project

Project Website

Skinner, T., Brance, K., Halligan, S. et al. Coping with Emotionally Challenging Research: Developing a Strategic Approach to Researcher Wellbeing. J Acad Ethics 23, 2559–2583 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-025-09665-5

Also mentioned:

Skinner, T. (2011). Dyslexia, mothering and work: intersecting identities, reframing, ‘drowning’ and resistance. Disability & Society, 26(2), 125–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2011.543859

Podcast researched & hosted by Dr Omar Phoenix Khan, University of Bath.

Theme music by SHEZ.

Dr Tina Skinner is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath, where she has been working since 2002. She is one of the founders of the Criminology Degree at the University of Bath,and a founder of the Special Interest Group on Disability, Work, Family and Care within the Work and Families Researcher Network (USA).

In 2020, Dr Skinner was invited to give evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee of the House of Commons inquiry ‘Unequal Impact: Coronavirus and the Impact on People with Protected Characteristics', and then again in 2021 at the Labour Party Conference, to assist them in understanding the gender/dis-ability pay gap.

In relation to GBV, Dr Skinner is known for:

• her research with victim-survivors of rape and their experiences of SARCs (Sexual Assault Referral Centres),

• She edited the book Researching Gender Violence

• and has worked with colleagues to develop a strategic response to gender based violence at University.

• And most recently, she has developed a protocol for the ethical supervision of gender based violence research

In this part one of my interview with Dr Skinner we will focus on her thoughts about and experiences of ethically conducting gender based violence research.

In part 2, we will turn to consider the impact of this work on the researcher, acknowledging that we are not research-making automatons and instead consider how we can improve the well-being of researchers working on trauma. I think that we all can take a lot from both episodes.

Skinner, T., & Taylor, H. (2008). “Being Shut Out in the Dark”: Young Survivors’ Experiences of Reporting a Sexual Offence: Young Survivors’ Experiences of Reporting a Sexual Offence. Feminist Criminology, 4(2), 130-150. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085108326118 (Original work published 2009)

Tina Skinner, MarianneHester, Ellen Malos (2013) ResearchingGender Violence. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis

Jen Harris is the founder & Co-Director of The Black Criminology Network, launched in 2020 to assist Criminologists of Black heritage to obtain the relevant opportunities and support to succeed in their careers. Jen is a Criminology PhD Researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK. In this episode, Omar chats to her about The Black Criminology Network and her hopes for the group, as well as her PhD research, which uses Critical Race Theory to examine community policing in the West Midlands.

Jen has around a decade’s worth of experience working and volunteering across the Criminal Justice system, and also founded CrimiTalk (2016) to fulfil her passion for supporting others through their Criminology journey.

Jen’s achievements include winning multiple awards, contributing to conferences and educational exchanges, and sharing expertise on an episode of MTV’s True Life Crime UK.

Join The Black Criminology Network here.

How is crime reported — and who gets to shape the narrative? In this episode, Dr. Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Vikram Dodd, Police and Crime Correspondent for The Guardian, about the challenges and responsibilities of covering crime, policing, and justice in the UK.

With a career spanning some of the most significant moments in recent British criminal justice history — from the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and the landmark Macpherson Report, to reporting on terrorist attacks and the state’s security responses — Vikram reflects on how journalism can hold institutions to account, and rthe unique pressures that come with reporting on the police.

The conversation takes a close look at the Metropolitan Police, a force at the centre of much of his recent reporting, and explores broader questions about the role of media today. How much freedom does a journalist have to express their perspective when covering sensitive topics? What does impartiality mean when evidence points to systemic failures? And how has the rise of social media both complicated and enriched crime reporting — simultaneously driving clicks and amplifying public scrutiny of police misconduct?

Finally, Vikram shares what keeps him motivated in a beat that often involves deeply troubling subject matter, and why independent journalism on crime and justice is more vital than ever.

This episode will resonate with students of criminology, sociology, and media studies, as well as anyone interested in the power of journalism to expose, challenge, and make sense of how justice is pursued in the UK.