Dr Megan McElhone
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Dr Megan McElhone joined Birkbeck as a Lecturer in 2020. Her research concerns policing, race, and racism. She offers undergraduate and postgraduate modules based on her research expertise.
Raised on unceded Darug lands in Sydney, Australia, Megan completed her PhD in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales. Her PhD thesis examined the New South Wales Police Force’s targeted and sustained policing of Middle Eastern people in Sydney. Since moving to London to take up her post at Birkbeck, Megan has continued to investigate the policing of racialised communities. Her recent projects have examined the Metropolitan Police's use of Section 60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and Knife Crime Prevention Orders.
In addition to her primary programme of research on racialised policing, Megan has contributed to research projects at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Law School (University of Sydney), and the Australian Human Rights Commission. These projects variously concerned the unlawful use of police strip search powers, miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, and workplace sexual harassment.
Highlights
Chapter 'Immortalising the Golden Age of Middle Eastern Crime: Police-media liaisons, essentialism and epistemic violence' published in Bhatia et al. Racism, Violence and Harm.
Article 'Gangland and Task Force Gain: An alternative account of Middle Eastern Crime in Sydney, Australia' published in Critical Criminology.
Article 'Over-policed and under-protected: Why does nothing change?', co-authored with Sarah Lamble, published by the Institute of Race Relations.
Article 'Defund – not defend – the police: A response to Fleetwood and Lea', co-authored with Tom Kemp, Sarah Lamble and J.M. Moore, published in The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice.
Qualifications
- PhD in Law, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, 2019
Web profiles
Professional memberships
Editorial Review Board member: Policing: An International Journal
Advisory Board member: RECEDE (funded by the European Research Council)
ORCID
0000-0003-1716-3941 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- Racialised policing
- The work of ‘specialist’ police squads
- How space and place mediate police practice
- The relationships between police practice and legal rules/regulation
Research Centres and Institutes
- Steering Group member, Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image (BIMI)
Research clusters and groups
- Race, Gender and Culture research cluster
- Policy, Practice and Activism research cluster
- Regulation, Risk and Surveillance research cluster
Research projects
Middle Eastern Crime: Orientalist policing and politics in Sydney, Australia
Section 60 'suspicionless' stops and searches
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
Megan welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of her areas of research interest.
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Race, Crime and Justice (LACN014S7)
- Race, Crime and Justice (LACN014S7)
- Policing, Race and Justice (LACN025S7)
- Policing, Race and Justice (LACN025S7)
- Policing and Society (LALA112H5)
- Policing and Society (LALA112H5)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- McElhone, Megan (2023) Gangland and Task Force Gain: an alternative account of Middle Eastern Crime in Sydney, Australia. Critical Criminology ISSN 1205-8629.
- Lamble, Sarah and McElhone, Megan (2023) Over-policed and under-protected: why does nothing change?. Institute of Race Relations News
- McElhone, Megan and Kemp, T. and Lamble, Sarah and Moore, J.M. (2023) Defund – not defend – the police: a response to Fleetwood and Lea. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice ISSN 2059-1101.
- McElhone, Megan (2017) 'Now They're Extraordinary Powers': firearms prohibition orders and warrantless search powers in New South Wales. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 28 (3), pp. 329-337. ISSN 1034-5329.
Book Review
- McElhone, Megan (2021) Justice Alternatives.
Book Section
- McElhone, Megan (2024) Immortalising the golden age of Middle Eastern crime: police-media liaisons, essentialism, and epistemic violence. In: Bhatia, Monish and Poynting, S. and Tufail, W. (eds.) Racism, Violence and Harm: Ideology, Media and Resistance. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783031378782. (In Press)
- McElhone, Megan (2019) Portrayals of Middle Eastern background communities as criminal in Australian popular media. In: Akrivos, D. and Antoniou, A.K. (eds.) Crime, Deviance and Popular Culture: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillian. pp. 289-314. ISBN 9783030049119.
Other
- McElhone, Megan (2021) Knife crime prevention orders: punitive, not preventative. Abolitionist Futures.
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Business and community
Business and community
Outreach
October 2023 - Discussant: '"Seeing Like a Cop": Visuality and Coloniality in Spaces of Gendered Criminalisation' with Dr Emma Russell.
April 2023 - Online article: 'Over-policed and under-protected: Why does nothing change?', co-authored with Sarah Lamble, published by the Institute of Race Relations.
June 2022 - Discussant: 'Blackscapes: Urban Precarity, State Violence and Insurgent Politics in a State of Non-Being' with Dr Jamie Amparo Alves.
May 2022 - 'In Conversation' event organised by Birkbeck Students' Union.
January 2022 - Research featured: in the article 'A closer look at police powers' in BBK Magazine.
July 2021 - Interview: for the article 'Defunding the Police' in Public Finance Magazine.
June 2021 - Online article: 'Knife Crime Prevention Orders: Punitive, not Preventative', written for Abolitionist Futures.
December 2020 - Webinar: 'Race, Policing and the City', part of the Urban Intersections seminar series at Birkbeck, University of London.