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Dr Megan McElhone

Positions held:
  • Lecturer, Department of Criminology
Address

Room G02, 4 Gower Street

Email
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Dr Megan McElhone joined the Department of Criminology as a Lecturer in 2020. Megan primarily researches racialised policing.

    Raised on unceded Darug lands in Sydney, Australia, Megan completed her PhD in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales before moving to London to take up her post in the Department. Megan's PhD thesis examined the New South Wales Police Force’s targeted and sustained policing of ‘Middle Eastern’ communities in Sydney between 1998 and 2018. 

    Megan has also contributed to several research projects at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Law School (University of Sydney), and at 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.

    Web profiles

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Programme Director BSc Criminology & Criminal Justice (jointly with Dr Aviah Day)

    ORCID

    0000-0003-1716-3941
  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • The logics, methods and scope of proactive, intelligence-led, and pre-emptive policing
    • The work of ‘specialist’ police squads
    • Race, racism, racialisation, resistance, and refusal
    • Space, place and policing

    Research Centres and Institutes

    Research projects

    Making 'Middle Eastern Crime'

    Abstract

    Megan is working to disseminate her PhD findings. Megan’s PhD thesis critically examined the New South Wales Police Force's targeted policing of 'Middle Eastern' communities in Sydney, Australia, between 1998 and 2018. 

    Megan's thesis considered a range of institutional units, policies and practices, and provided the first academic account of the New South Wales Police Force's Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad (MEOCS). It also traced the Police Force's territorial policing of localities racialised as 'Middle Eastern', the targeted use of legal powers (especially 'suspicionless' search powers), and the extension of surveillance and regulation through community policing initiatives.

    Section 60 'suspicionless' stops and searches

    Abstract

    Megan has been awarded funding through Birkbeck’s Research Innovation Fund to examine the racial and spatial patterning of the Metropolitan Police’s use of powers contained in Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

  • 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)
    • Policing, Race and Justice (LACN025S7)
    • Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice (LADD059S7)
    • Understanding Crime (LALA146S4)
    • MPhil/PhD Research Methods (LALA228Z7)
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    Book Section

  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Outreach

    December 2020 - Webinar: 'Race, Policing and the City'. Part of the Urban Intersections seminar series at Birkbeck, University of London.