Dr Leonidas Cheliotis, MPhil PhD (Cantab)
Lecturer in Criminology
& Deputy Director, Centre for Criminal Justice
Leonidas Cheliotis joined the School of Law in September 2007 as Lecturer (US eq.: Assistant Professor) in Criminology and Deputy Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice. He is also the editor of the Centre’s newsletter. Currently, he is convenor, lecturer, and tutor for the optional undergraduate course Criminology (LAW045). In 2008-09, Leonidas was nominated by his students for the interdepartmental Drapers’ Prize in Teaching Excellence.
As an undergraduate, Leonidas studied Law at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (entrant through national exams) and Sociology at Deree College-The American College of Greece (wherefrom he graduated with Senior Honours). During the same period, he worked as a sports journalist for a year and served an eighteen-month stint as a conscript in the Greek infantry, mainly in the Evros region on the border with Turkey. He subsequently completed the MPhil in Criminological Research at Clare College, University of Cambridge (winner of the Manuel López-Rey Graduate Prize in Criminology, 2003-04), and, in November 2008, as a member of St John’s College, successfully defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge. Leonidas’ thesis focused on neoliberal penality in the Anglo-American world from a psychosocial perspective. His postgraduate studies were funded by St John’s College (Benefactors’ Scholarship), the Economic and Social Research Council, the Cambridge European Trust and the George and Marie Vergottis Fund, and the Cambridge Institute of Criminology (Manuel López-Rey Scholarship Fund, elected twice). From 2004-05 to 2006-07, he was a tutor for the course Crime & Deviance (Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge).
Leonidas’ main current research interests, theoretical as well as empirical, lie in the sociology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy of crime and punishment, the political economy of crime and crime control, the relationship between crime, criminal justice, and the mass media, the development and social functions of criminology as a discipline, professional culture and behaviour in criminal justice, comparative penal politics and policy, and the dialectics of power and resistance.
Leonidas is also the principal evaluator of:
- a 3-year pilot arts mentoring programme for released prisoners, run by the Koestler Trust with funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation
- ‘Learning to Learn’, an educational scheme run by the Anne Peaker Centre for the Arts in Criminal Justice in prisons across England and Wales with funding from the Offenders Learning and Skills Unit, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills
Leonidas is an editorial board member of the Open Criminology Journal and the Resistance Studies Magazine. In 2008, he resigned from the editorial board of the Prison Service Journal in protest against Prison Service censorship of publications by its staff. He has served as a manuscript reviewer for Oxford University Press, and has peer-reviewed articles for Punishment & Society, Law & Society Review, Social Problems, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Crime, Media, Culture, and Field Methods. His work has been presented at various conferences, workshops, and academic institutions, including, more recently, guest talks at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge; the Legal Theory Group, University of Edinburgh; the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and the University of Glasgow; the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
Key publications include:
Monographs
- Law and Order in the Margins of Europe: A Political Economy of Othering (monograph, in progress)
Law and Order in the Margins of Europe is an original contribution to the understanding of punitive public attitudes in capitalist societies. Weaving together concepts, methods, and data from anthropology, history, sociology, political science, psychoanalysis, and criminology, the aim is to trace the ways in which public punitiveness against particular minorities may reflect the manipulation by state elites of instinctual vicissitudes under conditions of capitalism. The setting for this exploration is Greece–an unduly understudied jurisdiction with its own intriguing history of capitalist penality.
- Ναρκισσισμός, Κυριάρχηση και Ουμανιστική Αντίσταση: Μια Θεώρηση του Έριχ Φρομ[Narcissism, Domination and Humanist Resistance: A Frommian Perspective] (Greek translation in progress)
Edited collections
- Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives (Co-editor with Sappho Xenakis) (2 vols.) (forthcoming, Oxford: Peter Lang AG, 2010)
The book, in English, constitutes the most comprehensive and authoritative single work on crime and its control in contemporary Greece. Bringing together the most up-to-date, high-quality empirical and theoretical work, it sheds critical light on such diverse themes as the political economy of law and order; fear of crime and crime rates; media, crime, and criminal justice; youth and crime; minorities, crime, and criminal justice; corruption; organised crime and political violence; surveillance; sex trafficking; drugs, crime, and criminal justice; honour, violence, and crime; the impact of the EU on criminal justice; policing and social control; youth justice and probation; the adult judicial system; prisons and parole. Written by leading specialists, primary chapters are followed by discussant pieces from internationally recognised non-Greek generalists, a format that highlights the wider relevance of cutting-edge Greek criminological research to international audiences. Contributors (in alphabetical order): Efi Avdela, Margaret Beare, Trevor Bennett, Didier Bigo, Evi Boukli, Peter Bratsis, Leonidas Cheliotis, Stephen Farrall, Kevin Haggerty, Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Vassilis Karydis, Hans-Jürgen Kerner, Roy King, Effi Lambropoulou, Rob Mawby, Valsamis Mitsilegas, John Muncie, Claudia Aradau, Nicky Padfield, Yannis Panoussis, Charis Papacharalambous, Ioannis Papageorgiou, Georgios Papanicolaou, Aggeliki Pitsela, Robert Reiner, Vincenzo Ruggiero, Minas Samatas, Pieter Spierenburg, Michael Tonry (foreword), Joanna Tsiganou, Gert Vermeulen, Sophia Vidali, Sappho Xenakis, Christina Zarafonitou.
- The Arts of Imprisonment: Control, Resistance and Empowerment (Sole editor) (forthcoming, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010)
The arts offer an alternative lens through which to dissect imprisonment. Integrating a variety of cross-disciplinary theoretical traditions with the highest-quality empirical research conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, this collection probes three main areas: how state authorities may deploy artistic presentations and representations of the world of prisons to solidify domination over subordinates, prisoners or otherwise; the use of the arts, both inside and outside prisons, as a means of challenging or coping with the inherently harsh prison system and the broader project of domination it reflects and serves; and the evaluation research on the implementation and effectiveness of arts-related programmes in prisons. Contributors (in alphabetical order): Michelle Brown, W. B. Carnochan, Eamonn Carrabine, Leonidas Cheliotis, Mary Cohen, Sarah Colvin, Alexandra Cox, André Douglas Pond Cummings, Léon Digard, Thomas Fahy, Stathis Gauntlett, Loraine Gelsthorpe, David Gussak, Yvonne Jewkes, Robert Johnson, Alison Liebling, Mike Nellis, Vincenzo Ruggiero, Aylwyn Walsh, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams.
- Roots, Rites and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good (Sole editor) (forthcoming, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Whilst the condition of a damaged ethical life has received due scholarly attention to date, only rarely is resistance to it conceived as an actual possibility with the potential of real effects on a macro-social scale. This is not just a curious lacuna in the literature. To ignore or miss concrete possibilities or even instances of resistance is to reinforce the apparent naturalness and inevitability of structures of injustice. The aim of this edited collection is to help address this epistemological neglect, exploring the multiplicity of motives, presuppositions, sites, ways, and consequences of acts of resistance. As shown in the ensuing contributions, resistance can be recalcitrant or transformative in its aims, discursive or physical in its means, and local or generalized in its loci. If there is a single argument that can be distilled, it is that the emergence of progressive resistance entails the incessant rational critique of so-styled ‘common sense’ and prevalent ethical claims–a process which could be called ‘the banality of good’. Contributors (in alphabetical order): Andrea Brighenti, Leonidas Cheliotis, Lilie Chouliaraki, Spiros Gangas, Richard Kearney, Alison Liebling, John O’Neill, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Justice Tankebe, Ezra Tessler, Sappho Xenakis.
Peer-reviewed journal articles
- ‘Narcissism and Punitive Power: Retrieving the Legacy of Erich Fromm’ (under review)
- ‘Governing through the Looking-Glass: Neoliberalism, Managerialism, Punitiveness’ (under review)
- ‘Narcissism as an Antecedent of Domination and Humanist Resistance: A Frommian Perspective’ (under review)
- ‘Psychoanalysing Social Domination: From Bourdieu to Fromm’ (under review)
- ‘The Scale of Imprisonment in Contemporary Greece: Getting the Evidence Right’ (under review)
- ‘The Ambivalent Consequences of Visibility: Crime and Prisons in the Mass Media’, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal (forthcoming, 2010)
- ‘The Sociospatial Mechanics of Domination: Transcending the “Exclusion/Inclusion” Duality’, Law & Critique (forthcoming, 2010)
- Italian translation: ‘La meccanica sociospaziale della dominazione: Trascendere la dualità esclusione/inclusione’, Studi sulla questione criminale: Nuova serie di Dei delitti e delle pene (Rome) 4(2) (forthcoming, 2009)
- Extended version in Portuguese translation: ‘Eyes Wide Shut: Ressituando a Questão da Exclusão Social’ (under review)
- ‘Before the Next Storm: Some Evidence-based Reminders about Temporary Release’ (2009) International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 53(4): 420-432
- ‘Reconsidering the Effectiveness of Temporary Release: A Systematic Review’ (2008) Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal 13(3): 153-168
- ‘How Iron is the Iron Cage of New Penology? The Role of Human Agency in the Implementation of Criminal Justice Policy’ (2006) Punishment & Society: The International Journal of Penology 8(3): 313-340
- Abridged version: ‘Resisting the Scourge of Managerialism: On the Uses of Discretion in Late-Modern Prisons’, in J. Bennett, B. Crewe and A. Wahidin (eds.) (2007) Understanding Prison Staff, pp. 247-261.Cullompton: Willan Publishing; homonymous excerpt translated in Italian and reprinted as: ‘Resistere al flagello del managerialismo: gli usi della discrezionalità nelle carceri tardo-moderne’, Lo squaderno. Rivista di discussione culturale (Trento), 5/Ex: percorsi d’uscita (September 2007): 25-28
- ‘Penal Managerialism from within: Implications for Theory and Research’ (2006) International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, special issue on ‘Prisons’,29(5): 397-404
- ‘Demystifying Risk Management: A Process Evaluation of the Prisoners’ Home Leave Scheme in Greece’ (2006) Criminology & Criminal Justice: An International Journal 6(2): 163-195
- ‘Race Matters in British Prisons: Towards a Research Agenda’ (2006, with A. Liebling) British Journal of Criminology 46(2): 286-317
- ‘The Prison Furlough Programme in Greece: Findings from a Research Project in the Male Prison of Korydallos’ (2005) Punishment & Society: The International Journal of Penology 7(2): 201-215
- Greek translation (N.B.: sole-authored article): ‘Ο Θεσμός της Χορήγησης Τακτικών Αδειών Απουσίας σε Κρατουμένους: Πορίσματα από Έρευνα στη Δικαστική Φυλακή Κορυδαλλού’ (September-October 2002) ΠοινικόςΛόγος (Athens) 5: 2137-2152
Contributions to books:
- ‘Prisons and Parole’, in L. K. Cheliotis and S. Xenakis (eds) Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives. Oxford: Peter Lang AG (forthcoming, 2010) (with responses by Roy King and Kelly Hannah-Moffat)
- ‘Youth and Crime’ (with I. Papageorgiou), in L. K. Cheliotis and S. Xenakis (eds) Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives. Oxford: Peter Lang AG (forthcoming, 2010) (with a response by Hans-Jürgen Kerner)
- ‘Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: An Introduction’ (with S. Xenakis), in L. K. Cheliotis and S. Xenakis (eds) Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspectives. Oxford: Peter Lang AG (forthcoming, 2010)
- ‘A Suitable Amount of Bourgeoisification: Narcissism and the Provision of Arts in Prisons’, in L. K. Cheliotis (ed.) The Arts of Imprisonment: Control, Resistance and Empowerment. Aldershot: Ashgate (forthcoming, 2010)
- ‘The Arts of Imprisonment: An Introduction’, in L. K. Cheliotis (ed.) The Arts of Imprisonment: Control, Resistance and Empowerment. Aldershot: Ashgate(forthcoming, 2010)
- ‘Narcissism, Humanism and the Revolutionary Character in Erich Fromm’s Work’, in L. K. Cheliotis (ed.) Roots, Rites and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming, 2010)
- ‘Roots, Rites and Sites of Resistance: An Introduction’, in L. K. Cheliotis (ed.) Roots, Rites and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming, 2010)
- ‘Greece’, in N. Padfield, D. van Zyl Smit and F. Dünkel (eds) Release from Prison: European Policy and Practice. Cullompton: Willan Publishing (forthcoming, 2009)
- ‘Temporary Release’, in Y. Jewkes and J. Bennett (eds.) (2007) Dictionary of Prisons and Punishment, pp. 288-290. Cullompton: Willan Publishing
- ‘Social Factors and Crime’ in M. Parker (ed.) (2006, with J. Murray and S. Maruna) Dynamic Security: The Democratic Therapeutic Community in Prison, pp. 23-36. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Postgraduate supervision
Leonidas welcomes high-quality proposals for postgraduate research in all fields of criminology, especially in the fields of his immediate interest (see earlier). In addition to hard work and dedication, prospective candidates must be able to demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking, strong research potential, and proficiency in academic written English.
Starting in 2009-2010, Leonidas will be co-supervisor (with Professor Kate Malleson) of Ms Andriani Fili, whose doctoral project aims to explore female prisoner resistance in contemporary Greece. Following a competitive procedure, Ms Fili was awarded a 3-year studentship by the School of Law.
Leonidas has also supervised Masters-level dissertations on such topics as parole decision-making in England and Wales and the relationship between mandatory sentencing and common law.
