Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Dr Waqas Tufail
Senior Lecturer
Dr Waqas Tufail is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Social Sciences. His teaching and research interests include policing, racism and anti-racism, Islamophobia/anti-Muslim racism and the racialisation and criminalisation of minority groups.
Waqas serves on the Editorial Board of the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity journal and is a Board Member of the International Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity. He has completed two periods as a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, most recently in 2019.
Waqas has delivered invited keynote lectures internationally at institutions including the University of Versailles, France, and has written for and worked closely with a number of UK-based and international race equality and human rights groups including the Institute of Race Relations, The Runnymede Trust and the Transnational Institute.
An activist and community organiser, Waqas is co-founder of the Northern Police Monitoring Project, a grassroots initiative that works with communities affected by police harassment, brutality and racism. His activism very much informs his academic work.
Current Teaching
- 'Race', Crime and Social Exclusion
- Terrorism, Policing and Security
- Decolonising Criminology
Research Interests
Waqas in his research examines the racialisation of crime, the societal impact this has on communities and the implications this has for anti-racism and social policy. His most recent and long-term research project has utilised qualitative and ethnographic methods to explore the racialisation of what came to be known in the UK as the 'grooming gang' child sexual exploitation scandals. Waqas has published numerous sole and co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters from this project. This project has led to significant impact, including influencing policymakers - in December 2020, the Home Office published a report citing Waqas' joint research with Dr Ella Cockbain of University College London confirming there was no evidence that one ethnic group is disproportionately engaged in crimes of child sexual exploitation.
Waqas has written for, provided commentary to and had his research profiled in media outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent and CNN. He is currently supervising doctoral student Katie Ismay on a project titled “How has the (re)emergence of the far right shaped ‘ethnic minority’ citizens perceptions of Britishness?” and welcomes expressions of interest from prospective doctoral students related to any area of his research interests.
Selected Outputs
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Bhatia M; Poynting S; Tufail W (2018) Media, Crime and Racism. Springer.
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Tufail AW (2018) Media, State and ‘Political Correctness’: The Racialisation of the Rotherham Child Sexual Abuse Scandal. In: Tufail W; Poynting S; Bhatia M ed. Media, Crime and Racism. Palgrave Macmillan,
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Cohen B; Tufail AW (2017) Prevent and the Normalization of Islamophobia. In: Islamophobia: Still a Challenge For Us All. Runnymede Trust,
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Tufail AW; Poynting S (2016) Muslim and Dangerous: ‘Grooming’ and the Politics of Racialisation. In: Pratt D; Woodlock R ed. Fear of Muslims: International Perspectives on Islamophobia. Springer,
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Cockbain E; Tufail W (2020) Failing victims, fuelling hate : challenging the harms of the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative. Race & Class, 61 (3), pp. 3-32.
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Tufail AW (2015) Rotherham, Rochdale, and the Racialised Threat of the ‘Muslim Grooming Gang’. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 4 (3), pp. 30-43.
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Jeffery B; Tufail AW; Jackson W (2015) Policing and the Reproduction of Local Social Order: a case study of Greater Manchester. Journal on European History of Law, 6 (1), pp. 118-128.
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Tufail W; Poynting S (2013) A Common Outlawness': Criminalisation of Muslim Minorities in the UK and Australia. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2 (3), pp. 43-54.
