Leonidas Cheliotis is an Associate Professor of Criminology in the Department of Social Policy.
Leonidas was previously a Chancellor's Fellow in Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Law and Society at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh, following a Lectureship in Criminology at the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London, where he was also Deputy Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice. Born and raised in Athens, Greece, he received a B.A. in Sociology from Deree College, The American College of Greece, and an M.Phil. in Criminological Research and a Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Cambridge. He has been elected to visiting positions at the Centre for the Study of Law and Society, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and the Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. In recognition of his research, he has received the 2016 Adam Podgòrecki Prize by the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Sociology of Law, the 2015 Outstanding Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award by the Critical Criminal Justice Section of the American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the 2013 Critical Criminologist of the Year Award by the Division on Critical Criminology of the American Society of Criminology. In 2014, his guest-edited special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly on 'Prison Realities: Views from Around the World' won the Best Public Intellectual Special Issue Award of the American Council of Editors of Learned Journals, Modern Language Association.
The main themes addressed in Leonidas' research can be grouped under two broad headings: first, the political economy and social psychology of punishment; and second, the implementation and consequences of penal and cognate policies. Jurisdictionally, the focus of his work to date has been on the Mediterranean region and the Anglo-American world from both national and international comparative angles. Methodologically, his research brings together theoretical concepts and insights from a variety of disciplinary fields, especially from sociology, anthropology, psychology and history, also fusing them with findings from fieldwork he has undertaken in criminal justice settings. Leonidas welcomes enquiries from potential PhD students to work on topics in his areas of interest.
Leonidas has an extensive and sustained track record of publications in top international peer-reviewed journals, and has also contributed many chapters and several other entries to various edited collections. He is an Associate Editor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, the official journal of the British Society of Criminology. Between 2015-2019, he was an Editor and Book Review Editor of the British Journal of Criminology, having served on the journal's Editorial Board since 2010. He currently serves on the Advisory Panel of LSE Press, the International Associate Editorial Board of Punishment & Society: The International Journal of Penology, the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Criminology (having also been an Associate Editor of the journal between 2011 and 2014), the editorial advisory boards of Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict & World Order, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, and the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and the international editorial board of Delito y Sociedad. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the book series Palgrave Series on Crime, Media, Culture. In 2021, he was elected a member of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) Peer Review College.
Leonidas supervises doctoral studies in areas including:
Penal policy and practice; punishment and social control; race/gender, crime and criminal justice; transitional justice; comparative criminology; psychosocial criminology