St Mary’s Academic Speaks at Top Indian University

Subject Lead in the School of Law and Society at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Neena Samota delivered an address recently at the O.P. Jindal Global University in India.

Ranked as the top private Indian university in the past three QS World University Rankings, O.P. Jindal Global University is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary and research-oriented university based in Haryana.

Neena, Subject Lead Criminology & Sociology at St Mary’s, was invited by the Law, Criminology and the Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences school to give a talk on the subject of decolonisation in April.

The lecture, entitled ‘Criminology and Criminal Justice – Decolonising Thought and Practice’, included an overview of the ongoing debates on what decolonising criminology entails in England and Wales and how this applies to criminal justice practice. The talk was designed to invite collaborative thinking on what lessons can be drawn from a comparative perspective to achieve the decolonisation of criminology and criminal justice practice.

As a result of this initial engagement, Neena has been invited by Poulomi Bhadra from Jindal Global University to collaborate with India Vision Foundation a national NGO based in New Delhi. The Foundation aims to assess the impact of their prisoner rehabilitation and reintegration programme. Neena’s role on the project will be to offer expertise on prisoner rehabilitation and reintegration programmes drawing from her experience of working with the prison and probation services in England and Wales.

Speaking of her experience, Neena said, “I am so pleased that St Mary’s Lecturer in Law and Jindal alumnus Anush Ganesh initiated contact with his university in India. I was delighted to be on the Jindal campus in April to address faculty members and PhD students who were undertaking research on themes including gender-based violence, human rights, migration, organised crime, prisons, impact of anti-terror and national security legislation.

“I aim to work with interested colleagues across the School of Law and Society and Bakhita Research Centre to expand research collaborations that can be further enriched through a comparative perspective. I hope this initial engagement will lead to other collaborative opportunities with their staff and students.”