Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Dr Emily Hart
Lecturer
Emily is a critical criminologist who's research crosses the areas of prisons, desistance from crime and resistance movements.
Emily's work takes an anti-carceral feminist and abolitionist stance and is concerned with the harms of imprisonment and its detrimental impact on desistance, post custody experiences and communities. Her research examines the impact of prison expansion and forms of resistance to punitive state measures and she also has an interest in feminist research methods and critical social theory.
Emily is the co-editor of the books Resist the Punitive State: Grassroots struggles across welfare, housing, education and prisons (Pluto Press) and New Perspectives on Desistance: Theoretical and empirical developments (Palgrave).
Emily took up her post at Leeds Beckett in December 2022. She has previously held lectureships at the University of Liverpool, Lancaster University and Liverpool Hope University. Emily completed her PhD at the University of Leeds (ESRC 1+3). She also holds an MSc Social Research (University of Leeds), MA Sociology (London School of Economics and Political Science), BA Sociology with Politics (London Metropolitan University). In addition she has a previous career in Secondary and Post 16 education and holds a PGCE in Social Science and Humanities from the Institute of Education, University of London.
Research Interests
Emily is currently conducting research into the impact of the new wave of 'mega prisons' on local communities amid the governments program of prison expansion. She also continues to develop a 'critical desistance' approach to the analysis of post custody experiences.
Emily's work includes theorising the resistance strategies utilised by a variety of campaigns in resisting the increasingly punitive state. She is also involved in a joint project examining the the Brooke House Immigration Detention Centre Inquiry. All her research and campaigning work is underpinned by a commitment to abolitionist politics and anti-carceral feminism.
