Justice Focus

What does it mean to police the night — and how does race shape who gets in, who gets excluded, and who decides? In this episode, Dr. Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Dr. Nikhaela Wicks, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent, about her ethnographic research on the night-time economy in the South of England.

Based on a year of fieldwork with police officers, nightclub door staff, and others working in nightlife, Dr. Wicks shows how racial boundaries are drawn and enforced in spaces that are supposed to be about leisure and celebration. From discriminatory door policies to the paradox of Black consumers being both “wanted” for their cultural presence and “unwanted” as perceived risks, her research unpacks how racism plays out in subtle and not-so-subtle ways after dark.

The discussion also turns to criminology as a discipline, where Dr. Wicks argues that race and racism are still treated as “blind spots.” She reflects on the whiteness of criminology teaching and curricula, and shares how students and educators are pushing for a more inclusive and critical future.

This conversation will interest anyone curious about nightlife, policing, race, or the future of criminology itself.

Read Dr. Wicks’ work here:

• Wicks, N. (2022). “You Wanna Come to the ‘Urban’ Night Tomorrow… It’s the Wrong Night Tonight”: Black Consumers as both “wanted” and “unwanted” in the night time economy. Conflict and Society, 8, 20–37. https://doi.org/10.3167/arcs.2022.080102

  Wicks, N. (2023). “Why is my Criminology Curriculum Still so White? ‘Race’ and racism as ‘Blind Spots’ in UK Criminology Teaching and Student Recommendations for the Future”. Journal of Criminal Justice Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2022.2158205

How do histories of empire shape the everyday realities of policing today? In this episode, Dr. Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Dr. Zoha Waseem, Associate Professor at the University of Warwick and Co-Coordinator of the Urban Violence Research Network (UVRN), about her research on policing, security, and urban violence in Pakistan.

Drawing on over 200 interviews with serving and retired officers, archival work, case studies, and policy analysis, Dr. Waseem’s ethnography explores how police in Karachi navigate the contradictory roles of enforcing state power while also being victims of structural violence themselves. Many officers come from the same impoverished communities they patrol, embodying both oppressor and oppressed, and are often forced to choose between starvation and predation.

The conversation also reflects on the enduring influence of British colonial structures in shaping postcolonial policing practices, as well as on what counts as “success” in this kind of research and what meaningful impact might look like.

This episode will interest anyone concerned with policing, security, urban violence, and the legacies of colonialism in the Global South and beyond.

Read Dr. Waseem’s work here:

• Waseem, Z. (2022). Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/insecure-guardians-9780192865335

Finally, we're back!

Announcing Series 2 of Justice Focus. A criminology podcast amplifying the voices shaping justice.
Each episode features in-depth conversations with people doing the work—whether through academic research, NGO projects, or frontline practice. Together, we not only shine a spotlight on the ideas and innovations transforming criminal justice across the world, but also challenge traditional ways of thinking about justice and explore what lies beyond them.

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Between 2003 and 2016, the average tariff for murder in England & Wales increased by almost 40% to over 20yrs of imprisonment. It's clear that as a society, we have become desensitised to these huge sentences. In this episode, Professor Ben Crewe chats to Omar about his recent book, ‘Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood’ (coauthored with Dr Susie Hulley, & Dr Serena Wright), which analyses the experiences of prisoners in England & Wales sentenced when relatively young to very long life sentences. Ben also discusses his own professional journey and introduces the new academic journal Incarceration.

This is the last episode of the series! Thank you so much to everyone involved and to all those who have listened and shared your feedback!

The whole point of the podcast is to help spread the positive impact, so please share this episode (or any of the others) with someone who you think may like it!

Ben Crewe is Professor of Penology & Criminal Justice, and Deputy Director of the Prisons Research Centre, at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge.

Prof. Ben Crewe | @crewebencrewe | Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge

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

Khatuna Tsintsadze is the Co-director of The Zahid Mubarek Trust (ZMT), an independent national charity founded in 2009 by the family of 19-year-old Zahid Mubarek who was murdered by his racist cellmate on the morning scheduled for his release from Feltham Young Offender Institution, London, UK.

Khatuna chats to Omar about Zahid's legacy, her aspirations for the Trust and her personal approach to the heavy topics inherent in human rights work.

During the episode, we mention 'A Record of Our Own' campaign, which was launched by the ZMT in June 2020. It aims to understand the impact of Covid-19 on prisoners from Black, Asian and minority ethnic background, including people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups.

Khatuna joined the ZMT in 2011 having previously spent over fifteen years working in the non-governmental sector, both nationally and internationally. Prior to that, she held a senior position within a national human rights organisation in Georgia, providing legal aid and advocacy to the victims of human rights abuses and discrimination. In parallel, Khatuna worked as a human rights expert on a number of international projects led by the OSCE/ODIHR, Council of Europe and the European Commission.

Khatuna Tsintsadze | @k_tsintsadze | ZMT Website | @ZMTRUST

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

Professor Neil Chakraborti chats to Omar about his career in Criminology and Hate Crime Studies. They discuss recent 'trigger events' that have caused increases in hate crimes and the intersection between academic study and real-world impact: how universities can work more closely with practitioners. Neil's new book, co-authored with Stevie-Jade Hardy Blood, Threats and Fears: The Hidden Worlds of Hate Crime Victims is also discussed as an example of working in an accessible way.

Neil Chakraborti is a Professor of Criminology, Head of School and Director of the Centre for Hate Studies at the University of Leicester. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications within the field of hate crime and has been commissioned by numerous funding bodies to lead research studies which have shaped hate crime policy and scholarship. He is series editor of Palgrave Hate Studies; Chair of the Research Advisory Group at the Howard League for Penal Reform; and sits on the Advisory Boards of Tell MAMA, the International Network for Hate Studies and the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network.

Prof. Neil Chakraborti | @NeilChakraborti | University of Leicester | Centre for Hate Studies

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

Dr David Skarbek is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Political Theory Project at Brown University. He is the author of The Social Order of the Underworld (Oxford, 2014), which won the APSA's William Riker Award for best book in political economy and the Outstanding Book Award from International Association for the Study of Organized Crime.

His new book is called ‘The puzzle of prison order: Why life behind bars varies around the world’.

In this episode, David chats to Omar about prison gangs in the USA and his award-winning book, as well as his new book examining prison governance internationally. As well as asking how prisoners govern, discussions also cover transgender prison units, and prisoner of war camps, as well as thoughts on defunding the police.

Dr David Skarbek | @DavidSkarbek | http://www.davidskarbek.com/  

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

Alison Liebling is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Institute of Criminology’s Prisons Research Centre. Alison has recently been awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to embark on significant further research and took a moment to reflect on her career-to-date with Omar. 

Alison's work includes a series of successful books and publications on several topics including suicides and suicide attempts among adult prisoners, public-private sector comparisons, the work and role of prison officers, and the nature and quality of staff-prisoner relationships.

As well as reflecting on her inspirations and how she came to 'appreciative inquiry' as a research method, Alison discusses three of her papers, including some past and some present work:

Paper 1: Women in our own Right or ‘Honorary Men’? Reflections on a Professional Life in Prisons Research

Paper 2: Finding George Eliot In Prison: Reflections On Its Moral Life

Paper 3: Moral performance, inhuman and degrading treatment and prison pain

Prof. Alison Liebling | @AlisonLiebling | @PrisonsResearch | https://www.prc.crim.cam.ac.uk/directory/liebling 

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

Catherine Heard is a senior research fellow at ICPR - the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, based at Birkbeck, University of London. In this episode, she talks with Omar about ICPR’s World Prison Research Programme, which builds on the World Prison Brief, ICPR's online database providing details of the prison systems of over 220 independent countries and dependent territories.

Catherine discusses the real-world application of comparative criminology including two notable instances where ICPR data was directly used at the highest level - once where outgoing President Barak Obama referenced ICPR work and also when Catherine had to  fact-check the Brazilian Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sérgio Fernando Moro.

Key Publications Discussed: 

- Understanding and reducing the use of imprisonment in ten countries

- Towards a health-informed approach to penal reform? Evidence from ten countries

Catherine Heard | @ICPRtweet | @ICPSLONDON | https://www.icpr.org.uk/

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

Kerry Carrington is a Professor at the School of Justice in the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

In this episode, Kerry chats to Omar about the paradigm shift that is ‘Southern Criminology’, which exposes dominant forms of knowledge production as distinctly Northern/Western and challenges their claims of universality.

Kerry also discusses her preference for co-authoring, the numerous David & Goliath battles that she has taken on, and her passion for open access – ending with a call to action to aid the democratisation of knowledge.

We discuss the recent paper, Carrington, K., Guala, N., Puyol, M. V., & Sozzo, M. (2020), which uses the Southern Criminology paradigm to explore How Women’s Police Stations Empower Women, Widen Access to Justice and Prevent Gender Violence

Prof. Kerry Carrington | @CarringtonKL| Preventing Gender Violence | International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy

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