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…

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 aspir…

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 Ha…

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 …

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…

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 indepe…

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 universalit…

Kanika Samuels-Wortley is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Carleton University in Canada. Kanika specialises in race and racism, youth delinquency, policing, corrections, and critical race theory. Her current research explores how perceptions and experiences with racial discrimination by law enforcement o…

Dr Jamie Bennett has a huge wealth of experience in senior management positions across a range of specialised prison settings. These include as Governor of high-security prison HMP Long Lartin, and as Governor of HMP Grendon, the only prison across England and Wales to operate entirely as a series of therapeutic communities, among many others. Toda…

Dr Martin Glynn is a Critical Race Criminologist at Birmingham City University – but that does not come close to telling the full story. Martin is a writer, a dramatist, a data storyteller, the Writer in Residence at the National Justice Museum, and much more besides. In this episode he speaks to Omar about his alternative outlook to working within…

Nina Champion is Director of the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA), a coalition of over 160 member organisations working towards a fairer and more effective criminal justice system. In this episode, Nina talks with Omar about her vision for the CJA and about steps towards reform – especially in the areas of systemic racism in policing and the valuing…

Dr Hannah Graham is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Stirling. She talks with Omar about 'pracademia' and being close to both the practitioner and academic worlds. Hannah talks about her book: ‘Rehabilitation Work: Supporting Desistance and Recovery’, and as an expert in electroni…

Andrew M. Jefferson is a senior researcher at DIGNITY the Danish Institute Against Torture. For the past two decades, he has been studying and writing about prisons and prison reform processes in the global South with a focus on countries undergoing transition. He aims to contribute to social scientific understandings of the conditions under which …

Penelope Gibbs has been director of Transform Justice since its foundation and has previously sat as a magistrate in England and run projects for the Prison Reform Trust. In this episode, she discusses two important Transform Justice reports. The first relates to the effectiveness of Virtual Court Hearings: Defendants on video – conveyor belt justi…

Dr David Rodríguez Goyes, a Colombian lawyer by training is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, where he gained his PhD in Criminology. His main field of research is green criminology, with a focus on bio-piracy. His new book: Southern Green Criminology: A Science to End Ecological Discrimination focuses on the threat the western …

This episode explores Dr David Maguire's recent paper: Vulnerable Prisoner Masculinities in an English Prison. Masculinity is not a fixed thing. People can and do express their masculinity in many different ways and adapt their performance according to the environment. Rather than focus on the dominant or stereotypical forms of masculinity, Omar is…

Men’s prisons – one of the places most associated with a macho identity. In Part 1 of this 2 Part Episode, Omar is joined by Dr David Maguire, an expert in prisoner masculinities, especially the adaptations of those lower in the prison hierarchy. In this Part 1, we’ll be concentrating on Dave’s personal journey and how an inspirational moment with …

Omar is joined by Dr. Baz Dreisinger, founder of groundbreaking Prison-to-College Pipeline program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and author of the critically acclaimed book ‘Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World’. The chat includes discussion of the issues with thinking about rehabilitation an…

Omar is joined by Bella Sankey, Director of Justice & Human Rights based NGO Detention Action. They discuss how the UK is a complete outlier for immigration detention, the realities of detention during the pandemic & the long term effects of the demonisation and criminalisation of immigration specific to the UK. @BellaSankey | @DetentionAction | @O…

Omar is joined by Madhurima Dhanuka, Programme Head of the Prison Reforms Programme for the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) to discuss the realities prisons in India and how the criminal justice system is responding to the pressures of the pandemic. @CHRI_INT | @Mdhanuka17 You can find a copy of CHRI guidance doc: COVID - 19 and Prisons…

Omar is joined by Dr Adriana Cruz, a federal judge in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to discuss the realities of working from home as a judge during the COVID-19 quarantine. Dr Adriana also talks about combining her work as a judge with her role as a university lecturer and its benefits for students, as well as her specialism on confronting racism and patr…

Omar is joined by Jago Russell, Chief Executive of Fair Trials International to discuss how to ensure fair trials during the COVID-19 pandemic. See Fair Trial's resources linked to the global crisis: https://www.fairtrials.org/covid19justice Follow Jago Russell @JagoRussell | Fair Trials @fairtrials @OmarPKhan | @Justice_Focus https://www.justicefo…

Omar is joined by Olivia Rope, the Director of Policy and International Advocacy at Penal Reform International to discuss how criminal justice systems across the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. See PRI's briefing note on prevention measures in prisons and wider impacts of responses to governments on people in criminal justice systems…

Omar is joined by Andrew Neilson, the Director of Campaigns at The Howard League for Penal Reform to discuss recommendations for the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic. See the Howard League and Prison Reform Trust call for further early release to protect prisoners, staff and wider public from coronavirus @TheHowardLeague | @neilsonandrew …

Omar is joined by critical criminologist Dr Roxana Pessoa Cavalcanti to chat about her new book: A Southern Criminology of Violence, Youth and Policing. The study explores the experiences of communities of people living in Brazil's favelas and aims to add to the understanding of the use of violence and control in urban and postcolonial contexts. @R…

Omar Phoenix Khan introduces Justice Focus - a criminology podcast. Each week, he will interview an expert guest about an exciting aspect of their work and explore what kinds of real-world impact they hope to achieve.