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Professor Jo Phoenix

Jo became a trustee in November 2019.

Jo is Professor in Criminology at The Open University. She has held previous academic posts at the Universities of Middlesex, Bath, Durham and Leicester.

Her research interests include sex, gender, sexualities and justice, youth justice and punishment, the production of criminological knowledge and research ethics. These general interests have meant that she has studied and written about a wide variety of subjects including managerialism and ethics in the production of criminological knowledge, prostitution, prostitution policy reform, child sexual exploitation, sex and its regulation, youth penality and youth justice practice and policy.

She has been and remains particularly interested in understanding the changing conditions in which (some) women and (some) young people are criminalised and punished as well as the challenges facing those people who work with them.

Her most recent publications include: ‘Youth in Transition, Youth in Community: Alternative Visions of Youth Justice’ in Carlen, P. and Ayres, L. (eds.) (2019) Justice Alternatives Routledge: London; ‘Child Sexual Exploitation, Discourse Analysis and Prostitution’, in Pearce, J. (ed.) (2019) Building Theory into Practice, Policy Press: Bristol; and, ‘We Need to Talk About Youth Prostitution: A story of the demise of youth prostitution in England and Wales’ in Dewey, S., Crowhurst, I. and O. Izugbara (eds.) (2019) The Routledge International Handbook of Sex Industry Research Routledge: New York.

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