Mary Bosworth
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mfbosworth.bsky.social
Mary Bosworth
@mfbosworth.bsky.social

Professor of Criminology, @oxfordcrim.bsky.social, co-Director @bordercrim.bsky.social, writes about immigration detention and deportation.

Mary Francesca Bosworth is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford where she founded and co-directs the international research network Border Criminologies. She is the author of a number of books, including Engendering Resistance: Agency and Power in Women’s Prisons (1999), Explaining U.S. Imprisonment (2010), the edited book What is Criminology? (2011), the edited book The Borders of Punishment (2013), Inside Immigration Detention (2014), Bordered Lives (2020) with Khadija von Zinnenburg Carrol and Christoph Balzar, and Supply Chain Justice (2025). From 2009 to 2024 Mary Bosworth was the UK Editor-in-Chief of the journal Theoretical Criminology. .. more

Political science 39%
Sociology 31%

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

New from FM: High Court finds safeguarding failures by Home Office at Brook House detention centre | Jamie Bell
High Court finds safeguarding failures by Home Office at Brook House detention centre - Free Movement
In a stinging judgment, the High Court has found that the Home Secretary failed to comply with an article 3 systems duty in the operation of the rule 35
freemovement.org.uk

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

🎺🎺The @CalaisAppeal fundraiser just hit £20,000!!!!!🥳🤩🤩

This is amazing! They’re so close to reaching their goal 😭🙏🥰

Thank you so much everyone, let’s make it happen for them!

www.justgiving.com/campaign/tog...

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

ACLU @aclu.org · 3d
More people have died in ICE detention in 2025 than any year since 2004.

The government has a legal and moral obligation to provide people in its custody with medical care and livable conditions.
Four ICE detainee deaths in four days spark alarm as arrests grow
At least 30 detainees have died in 2025, prompting concerns about deteriorating conditions at facilities even as the agency has received an infusion of cash from Congress.
wapo.st
The final episode of #MAGA & #migration #podcast series dropped last week:
whodowethinkweare.org/podcasts/who...

@michaelacbenson.bsky.social & I reflect back on our conversations with 4 excellent guests: Cecilia Menjívar; Rachel Humphris, Ernesto Castañeda and Heba Gowayed

Brief recap🧵
S4 E5 The pace of change: MAGA, the US, the UK
Who Do We Think We Are?
whodowethinkweare.org

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"Thank you for everything you do, me and my family are so thankful, it really helps". If you can help us provide this support in #Oxford please donate to our winter crowdfunder at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/nobody-sho...

She‘s MY student. And ace. And very nearly no longer a student… it’s a great piece!

That’s the kind of news I want to read

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

Once more unto the #ECRFriday, dear friends, once more!

Laura Haas is a DPhil candidate @oxfordcrim.bsky.social

Her article on the deployment experiences of #prison staff with prior military experience is both interesting and impactful.

psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

#Criminology #Psychology
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org

As ever everyone’s been super busy. Feeling very grateful for @bordercrim.bsky.social today and all my wonderful colleagues
Before we close our blog for a well-earned break, we have some updates from our busy network! Find out what our members have been up to – from workshops, to toolkits, to films and books 📚

Wishing our colleagues and friends a restorative end to the year ❄️

blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...
Extending our thanks: Holiday Newsletter 2025
blogs.law.ox.ac.uk

yeah if it’s getting there it’s probs everywhere. Ugh

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

Before we close our blog for a well-earned break, we have some updates from our busy network! Find out what our members have been up to – from workshops, to toolkits, to films and books 📚

Wishing our colleagues and friends a restorative end to the year ❄️

blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...
Extending our thanks: Holiday Newsletter 2025
blogs.law.ox.ac.uk

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

We went to the High Court to challenge the government’s decision to authorise PAVA spray for use in prisons holding children.

Look at the information that has now been made public through this litigation: https://howardleague.org/blog/pava-spray-and-children-in-prison-our-two-days-in-court/

For Oxford people— @oxfordmutualaid.bsky.social need some more donations to meet their Xmas target. Please give what you can: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/nobody-sho...
Nobody should go hungry in Oxford this winter.
Ensure nobody goes hungry this christmas. Emergency food requests are surging this winter: we need your help to feed our neighbours in need.
www.crowdfunder.co.uk

Can you say which journals? Very glad I got out of the editing business before this became a thing. How awful.

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

We’re delighted to share details of our Public Seminar Series for Hilary Term 2026. This interdisciplinary series brings together scholars and practitioners to explore pressing issues in forced migration and refugee studies.

We hope you can join us… www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/news/public-...

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

Perhaps no other nationality came to represent the so-called ‘small boats crisis’ as much as Albanian migrants. Alice Griggs examines whether parliamentary discourse constructed those migrants as criminals to justify new legislation. Read the blog post ⤵️

blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...
Terrifying that Wes Streeting continues to try and pressurise hospitals into giving patient data to Palantir.

Take action here: goodlawproject.org/campaign/sto...

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

HarperCollins Author Academy opens 8th January, a virtual, six-week, free programme for writers from underrepresented to have their manuscript considered across HarperCollins UK publishing divisions.

Please share with anyone that might be interested.

Find out more at harpercollinsacademy.co.uk
Welcome to the HarperCollins Author Academy - HarperCollins Author Academy
Free-for-student six-week training programme created for writers from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds. Applications Open 8 January. The Author Academy offers writers … Continued
harpercollinsacademy.co.uk

Please read this very moving piece by one of the @oxfordcrim.bsky.social MSc students about the US/MX border.

Looking for Jesús: Embodied Religious Practices and Grief at the U.S-Mexico border blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...
Looking for Jesús: Embodied Religious Practices and Grief at
blogs.law.ox.ac.uk

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In this moving piece, Mónica Ruiz House takes us with her on a search and recovery operation in the Sonoran Desert. Here, religion-in-transit creates a shared language of grief for those who have lost their lives on the way. Read the new blog post ⤵️

blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

🚨Clarion morning read 🚨
Increasing numbers of people in Oxford are struggling to put food on the table, in this, one of the UK's most unequal cities.

Phil Perry from Oxford Mutual Aid writes about the growing community that's stepping up to help.
@oxfordmutualaid.bsky.social
Oxford’s hidden food emergency – and the community filling the gaps
“What are your plans for next week?” asks Dave. Maria tells him that it's her birthday.  As a volunteer for Oxford Mutual Aid (OMA), which delivers food to people across the city, Dave calls Maria ev...
oxfordclarion.uk
Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252:

Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.

Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk
Closing date for British Academy/Cara/Leverhulme Researchers at Risk applications is 14 January 2026.

'Grants are available to support research project activities for eligible researchers in all disciplines except medical and health sciences.' 1/2
Researchers at Risk Research Support Open Grants - British Academy / Cara / Leverhulme
The Leverhulme Trust is providing funding of £1,000,000 over five years targeted at providing research support for researchers at risk. Grants are available to support research project activities for ...
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

💭 On Human Rights Day, we return to a collection which asks, what would a human rights-centred criminology look like?

This means a criminology that works *for* human rights, but not necessarily *through* them. Read more ⤵️

blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...
Towards a human rights centred criminology
blogs.law.ox.ac.uk
Fascinating world of ancient glass: The skill of ancient glassmakers never ceases to amaze me.

This a magnificent #Roman striped mosaic bowl was made of preformed rods and canes fused on or in a mold.
Dating late 1st c. BC/early 1st c AD.

Timeless beauty!

📷 Corning Museums of Glass

🏺

Yet another research grant rejection today. Ugh. Not sharing to “normalise”, mainly sharing bc found out just before I got on a train and am cross. Oh well. Maybe I’ll take up crochet instead. Or something.

Congrats!

A great piece. Also a huge issue for researchers and students. Border Crim colleagues still trying to figure out how to build reflective practice to help with it. Mainly I’ve found trauma counselling works best. But not everyone can afford it & people struggle with guilt at being affected at all

Reposted by Mary Bosworth

New from Free Movement: Vicarious trauma: what practitioners need to know | Rachel Francis freemovement.org.uk/vicarious-tr...
Vicarious trauma: what practitioners need to know - Free Movement
This ongoing exposure to distress and trauma (and indeed the full range of human emotion) can be described as vicarious trauma.
freemovement.org.uk