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Prof. John Pratt – Internationally-esteemed, widely-published and much-awarded Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, VUW, will be available at the café for conversation on (among other things) penology and crime, populism and the rise of authoritarianism, and the history and sociology of punishment.Some of his CV:
John Pratt is Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His fields of research are comparative penology and the history and sociology of punishment. He has published in seventeen languages and has been invited to lecture or speak at conferences at universities in South America, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. In 2010-11 he was a Fellow at the Straus Institute for Advanced Studies of Law and Justice at New York University. His books include Punishment and Civilization (2002), Penal Populism (2007) and Contrasts in Punishment (2013), The Prison Diary of A.C. Barrington (2016) and Law, Insecurity and Risk Control (2020).
In 2009 he was awarded the Sir Leon Radzinowicz Prize by the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Criminology. In 2012 he was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand and in 2013 was awarded the Society’s Mason Durie Medal, given 'to the nation's pre-emiment social scientist.’
His research on the relationship between risk, populism and criminal justice has also led to an edited collection: Criminal Justice, Risk and the Revolt against Uncertainty was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020.
His most recent book, Populism, Punishment and the Threat to Democratic Order: The Return of the Strong Men, was published by Routledge in 2023. The book has been endorsed as follows:
1. Professor Malcom Feeley, Centre for the Study of law and Society, UC Berkeley:
"If you can only read one book in the large library of books on penal populism, John Pratt's Populism, Punishment and the Threat to Democratic Order is the one to read. It is expansive, casting its net broadly from Finland to New Zealand. It is comprehensive, integrating findings from a host of disciplines; history, political science, sociology and criminology to account for the appeal and rise of strong man politics and penal populism. It is daring, reflecting on collective responses to the Covid pandemic and the surprising resilience of the Ukrainian people as powerful antidotes to both populism and cynicism that paves the way for penal extremism. This book should be widely read by opinion leaders, criminal justice scholars, and students politics and social problems. A masterpiece
2. Dr Alex Corda, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Queen’s University, Belfast: School of Law, Edinburgh University:
"John Pratt vividly traces the genealogy of populism – and its punitive implications – from its inception up to the present time. The book illuminates and further develops the understanding of the complex, multifaceted relationship between populist ideologies and punishment. It offers, at once, a compelling socio-political investigation and a perceptive penal policy analysis, discussing lessons learned and identifying challenges looming ahead for modern democracies."
3. Professor Ad Akande, University of British Columbia:
"A very professional and slick book, expertly charting the way in which neo-liberal governance sowed the seeds from which populist "strong men" have come to threaten the viability of the democratic order itself - only for two unlikely saviors - COVID-19 and Vladimir Putin (via Russia Invasion of Ukraine) to provide it with a fragile reprieve."
In 2024, he and Japanese colleagues published an edited collection with Routledge – Crime, Justice and the Elderly: Japan and Beyond – the product of a Fellowship he was awarded by the Japan Society for the Advancement of Science. He has also received research awards from the Scandinavian Council for Criminological Research (three) and two Marsden awards from the Royal Society of New Zealand. He was also awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand’s James Cook Fellowship for 2008-09.
His current research is focussed and the resurgence of populism and its implications for Western democratic order. His most recent writing is a book chapter titled ”All that glisters is not gold”: Trump and the Corrosion of US Democracy.
From 1997-2005, Professor Pratt was editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. He is currently a member of the editorial board or international advisory board of numerous journals including the British Journal of Criminology, Punishment and Society, the American Journal of Cultural Sociology and Theoretical Criminology.
DEGREES
• LLB (Hons)
University of London, London, United Kingdom
• MA
Keele University, Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom
• PhD
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
AVAILABILITY
• Masters Research or PhD student supervision
• Join a web conference as a panellist or speaker
• Media enquiries
• Mentoring (long-term)
• Teaching provision
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Le Maquis Café - Wadestown, 11 Sefton St, Wadestown, Wellington 6012, New Zealand, Wellington
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
