Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
@ctmccartney.bsky.social
Professor of Law & Criminal Justice interested in INjustice. Research #forensics #AI science/tech in criminal justice. Also crazy about anti-fascism, atheism, Prince, professional cycling, politics, the news, live comedy and music. #academicsky (1st-gen)
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
The consultancy Nous takes hundreds of thousands of pounds from universities, leaves the exact same path of destruction everywhere, and keeps trying to avoid transparent contracts.
We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
‘Nousferatu’: the notorious consultancy advising Edinburgh uni amid 'huge' cuts
Scotland’s largest university has turned to Nous Group at the same time as it is making savings that could lead to nearly 2,000 job losses. Staff say they were misled about the extent of its work.
www.theferret.scot
November 30, 2025 at 10:02 AM
The consultancy Nous takes hundreds of thousands of pounds from universities, leaves the exact same path of destruction everywhere, and keeps trying to avoid transparent contracts.
We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
I really appreciate that @pbsnews.org ended the interview with this graphic.
It captures, in the simplest and starkest terms, the brutal arithmetic driving this country's homelessness catastrophe.
It captures, in the simplest and starkest terms, the brutal arithmetic driving this country's homelessness catastrophe.
November 30, 2025 at 1:33 AM
I really appreciate that @pbsnews.org ended the interview with this graphic.
It captures, in the simplest and starkest terms, the brutal arithmetic driving this country's homelessness catastrophe.
It captures, in the simplest and starkest terms, the brutal arithmetic driving this country's homelessness catastrophe.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
I think it’s difficult to recall just how chaotic the management of Covid was under Johnson and the “Save Summer Six” which I recall included Sunak and Gove . This from 24 September 2020.
November 30, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I think it’s difficult to recall just how chaotic the management of Covid was under Johnson and the “Save Summer Six” which I recall included Sunak and Gove . This from 24 September 2020.
Yep - lots of people been wondering this for years: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Ivan Milat was convicted of murdering seven people. Could he have killed scores more?
Retired UK detective believes family member was serial killer’s first unacknowledged victim, as NSW inquiry into unsolved murders calls for submissions
www.theguardian.com
November 30, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Yep - lots of people been wondering this for years: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Glorious, cathartic, taking no shit at all, Stewart Lee.
Brexit: “like someone stepping round a massive pile of dogshit on the living room carpet. Every day. For nine years.”
If only all our media could be as ruthlessly challenging as this.
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
Brexit: “like someone stepping round a massive pile of dogshit on the living room carpet. Every day. For nine years.”
If only all our media could be as ruthlessly challenging as this.
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
November 30, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Glorious, cathartic, taking no shit at all, Stewart Lee.
Brexit: “like someone stepping round a massive pile of dogshit on the living room carpet. Every day. For nine years.”
If only all our media could be as ruthlessly challenging as this.
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
Brexit: “like someone stepping round a massive pile of dogshit on the living room carpet. Every day. For nine years.”
If only all our media could be as ruthlessly challenging as this.
www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
This week, a very quick take on what the Budget says about the state we are in...
...but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI. Buckle up, etc.
...but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI. Buckle up, etc.
The Bullshit Maximiser
This week, a very quick take on what the Budget says about the state we are in; but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI.
jonn.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:35 PM
This week, a very quick take on what the Budget says about the state we are in...
...but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI. Buckle up, etc.
...but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI. Buckle up, etc.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
UN report: 'Every 10 minutes, partners and family members killed a woman intentionally in 2024. Gender-related killings (femicide/feminicide) are the most brutal and extreme manifestation of violence against women and girls.'
www.unwomen.org/en/articles/...
www.unwomen.org/en/articles/...
Five essential facts to know about femicide | UN Women – Headquarters
Every 10 minutes, partners and family members killed a woman intentionally in 2024. Gender-related killings (femicide/feminicide) are the most brutal and extreme manifestation of violence against wome...
www.unwomen.org
November 29, 2025 at 11:30 PM
UN report: 'Every 10 minutes, partners and family members killed a woman intentionally in 2024. Gender-related killings (femicide/feminicide) are the most brutal and extreme manifestation of violence against women and girls.'
www.unwomen.org/en/articles/...
www.unwomen.org/en/articles/...
One of my (many) fears with LLMs, is that reading it doesn't help my writing. Reading to me feels like sport - you play with people better than you and your game improves. When I read good writing I know that it's making my writing better. Reading AI slop means my writing no longer improves.
November 29, 2025 at 6:16 PM
One of my (many) fears with LLMs, is that reading it doesn't help my writing. Reading to me feels like sport - you play with people better than you and your game improves. When I read good writing I know that it's making my writing better. Reading AI slop means my writing no longer improves.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Reminder that shortly after ordering these strikes, Hegseth removed the press corps from the Pentagon and the SouthCom Commander overseeing operations in the Caribbean unexpectedly announced he is stepping down 2 yrs before his term is up. What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg.
Exclusive: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody” in the first strike on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. After two men survived, the mission commander ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, according to two sources.
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 29, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Reminder that shortly after ordering these strikes, Hegseth removed the press corps from the Pentagon and the SouthCom Commander overseeing operations in the Caribbean unexpectedly announced he is stepping down 2 yrs before his term is up. What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm not sure we're going to be able to live with the disappointment of Trump dying in office - passing on thinking he was indeed untouchable and great. Never having to face the ignominy and justice he deserves. And then he gets a big lavish funeral with people gushing? How do we sit through that?
November 29, 2025 at 2:45 PM
I'm not sure we're going to be able to live with the disappointment of Trump dying in office - passing on thinking he was indeed untouchable and great. Never having to face the ignominy and justice he deserves. And then he gets a big lavish funeral with people gushing? How do we sit through that?
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Wow - this guy must be really, REALLY bad with money if an extra £208 per month will “ruin” his retirement.
Let’s take a look at his situation based on what he told the @Telegraph
Because this does NOT add up!
No, this is not a “poor pensioner” scrabbling around for pennies…
🧵1/9
Let’s take a look at his situation based on what he told the @Telegraph
Because this does NOT add up!
No, this is not a “poor pensioner” scrabbling around for pennies…
🧵1/9
November 29, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Wow - this guy must be really, REALLY bad with money if an extra £208 per month will “ruin” his retirement.
Let’s take a look at his situation based on what he told the @Telegraph
Because this does NOT add up!
No, this is not a “poor pensioner” scrabbling around for pennies…
🧵1/9
Let’s take a look at his situation based on what he told the @Telegraph
Because this does NOT add up!
No, this is not a “poor pensioner” scrabbling around for pennies…
🧵1/9
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
See.
This capitulation will do untold amounts of harm — by design.
This capitulation will do untold amounts of harm — by design.
*adds Northwestern to growing list of US universities whose research published in 2025 and after is now questionable*
November 29, 2025 at 2:13 PM
See.
This capitulation will do untold amounts of harm — by design.
This capitulation will do untold amounts of harm — by design.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Radio 6 is a tribute to all that is best at the BBC. It is inform, educate and entertain in musical form: Utter loveliness. And then they periodically allow the news department to mutilate it with these context-free anti-asylum bulletins, reminding you of all that's worst about the BBC.
Radcliffe and Maconie on BBC 6 music is one of my favourite things
Having it interrupted by breathless news bulletin telling me ‘government has banned taxis for asylum seekers’ *really isn’t*
New lines like ‘Home Office spent £1k over weekend on taxis’ would struggle to make a local newspaper
Having it interrupted by breathless news bulletin telling me ‘government has banned taxis for asylum seekers’ *really isn’t*
New lines like ‘Home Office spent £1k over weekend on taxis’ would struggle to make a local newspaper
November 29, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Radio 6 is a tribute to all that is best at the BBC. It is inform, educate and entertain in musical form: Utter loveliness. And then they periodically allow the news department to mutilate it with these context-free anti-asylum bulletins, reminding you of all that's worst about the BBC.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
New study finds that down-ranking hostile political content in people’s social media feeds decreases political polarization.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...
www.science.org
November 28, 2025 at 11:16 PM
New study finds that down-ranking hostile political content in people’s social media feeds decreases political polarization.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
You've heard of the Friday night news dump. Here's the Friday night of Thanksgiving wknd dump. For special circumstances, like when the faculty assembly votes 595-4 against paying to end a shakedown and you do it anyway. Link to agreement here: bulkmail.northwestern.edu/trk/click?re...
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university
Full statement from NU below:
Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 12:34 AM
You've heard of the Friday night news dump. Here's the Friday night of Thanksgiving wknd dump. For special circumstances, like when the faculty assembly votes 595-4 against paying to end a shakedown and you do it anyway. Link to agreement here: bulkmail.northwestern.edu/trk/click?re...
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
What a great headline
November 28, 2025 at 3:49 PM
What a great headline
Wow. I've been reading a lot today (articles) and I've just opened a draft paper written by a colleague that I know wouldn't go near an LLM and BOY the difference! Just the first paragraph and I've lit up! It's phenomenal writing! Have I got so inured to AI slop that I don't even note it now?
November 28, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Wow. I've been reading a lot today (articles) and I've just opened a draft paper written by a colleague that I know wouldn't go near an LLM and BOY the difference! Just the first paragraph and I've lit up! It's phenomenal writing! Have I got so inured to AI slop that I don't even note it now?
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work at the University of Glasgow, gave this year’s Howard League Lecture, with the title ‘Rehabilitation and Penal Reform’.
Read the lecture here: https://howardleague.org/blog/the-2025-howard-league-lecture-held-in-memory-of-lord-parmoor/
Read the lecture here: https://howardleague.org/blog/the-2025-howard-league-lecture-held-in-memory-of-lord-parmoor/
November 28, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work at the University of Glasgow, gave this year’s Howard League Lecture, with the title ‘Rehabilitation and Penal Reform’.
Read the lecture here: https://howardleague.org/blog/the-2025-howard-league-lecture-held-in-memory-of-lord-parmoor/
Read the lecture here: https://howardleague.org/blog/the-2025-howard-league-lecture-held-in-memory-of-lord-parmoor/
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
🚨 Got bold ideas in criminology or criminal justice?
We want to read them.
Criminology & Criminal Justice is open for submissions — from the critical to the creative, the empirical to the theoretical.
🖊️ Send us your best work: journals.sagepub.com/home/CRJ
#Criminology
We want to read them.
Criminology & Criminal Justice is open for submissions — from the critical to the creative, the empirical to the theoretical.
🖊️ Send us your best work: journals.sagepub.com/home/CRJ
#Criminology
Criminology & Criminal Justice: Sage Journals
journals.sagepub.com
November 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM
🚨 Got bold ideas in criminology or criminal justice?
We want to read them.
Criminology & Criminal Justice is open for submissions — from the critical to the creative, the empirical to the theoretical.
🖊️ Send us your best work: journals.sagepub.com/home/CRJ
#Criminology
We want to read them.
Criminology & Criminal Justice is open for submissions — from the critical to the creative, the empirical to the theoretical.
🖊️ Send us your best work: journals.sagepub.com/home/CRJ
#Criminology
Considering whether we should restrict jury trial to deal with the court backlog? Aside from the huge principled problems - think about - will it even work??? (NO!) See below for some of the many many reasons juries are NOT the cause of the backlog.
Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇
November 28, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Considering whether we should restrict jury trial to deal with the court backlog? Aside from the huge principled problems - think about - will it even work??? (NO!) See below for some of the many many reasons juries are NOT the cause of the backlog.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Here are the Top 5 Dogs of the week!
November 28, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Here are the Top 5 Dogs of the week!
One of my fave things about having a standing desk is that on a Friday afternoon, when I'm flagging after a long week, I get to "treat" myself to sitting on my sofa and carrying on working! And later - I'll get back up, have a little dance at my standing desk and finish my day.
November 28, 2025 at 3:49 PM
One of my fave things about having a standing desk is that on a Friday afternoon, when I'm flagging after a long week, I get to "treat" myself to sitting on my sofa and carrying on working! And later - I'll get back up, have a little dance at my standing desk and finish my day.
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Genuinely one of the greatest derelictions of core duty by western governments of our time - not pushing for the provision of adequate ventilation and/or HEPA filters in most public buildings and settings to curb spread of all airborne pathogens
My hotel in Hong Kong, where people understand airborne transmission of respiratory viruses, has HEPA filters everywhere
November 27, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Genuinely one of the greatest derelictions of core duty by western governments of our time - not pushing for the provision of adequate ventilation and/or HEPA filters in most public buildings and settings to curb spread of all airborne pathogens
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
Luke Johnson, Chairman of Gail's Bakery, who was pro-Brexit, critical of lockdowns and is a climate skeptic criticises Labour's budget #BBCQT
"This is not how prosperous and happy societies become that way"
"This is not how prosperous and happy societies become that way"
November 27, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Luke Johnson, Chairman of Gail's Bakery, who was pro-Brexit, critical of lockdowns and is a climate skeptic criticises Labour's budget #BBCQT
"This is not how prosperous and happy societies become that way"
"This is not how prosperous and happy societies become that way"
Reposted by Dr Carole McCartney 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
I heard a story about a female academic giving a paper at the IHR who, after receiving a long and aggressive question from a senior male professor, simply leaned back with her hands behind her head and replied “Oh, do fuck off.”
One of my colleagues went to a seminar at Berkeley and when someone asked a question Derrida brushed it off saying ‘what you ask may be important but it is not interesting’.
This path leads to chaos.
November 27, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I heard a story about a female academic giving a paper at the IHR who, after receiving a long and aggressive question from a senior male professor, simply leaned back with her hands behind her head and replied “Oh, do fuck off.”