Research

My PhD thesis was on women in the international drug trade. I conducted ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork in prisons in Ecuador in order to explore women’s experiences of working as mules and in particular how gender, agency and choice shaped their experiences and options in the context of the drugs trade.

I continue to be interested in feminist theory and sociological perspectives on gender; criminological theories about gender and offending; globalisation and crime; women in the drugs trade; organised crime; critical criminology and cultural criminology. I am interested in ethnographic, qualitative and narrative methods; feminist research, reflexivity and emotions in research; risk and ethics in research.

I have been awarded a Small Grant by the British Academy to research Women in the Street Level Cocaine trade in London. This project will run from August 2011-September 2013.

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Publications

Research::

• Fleetwood, J and Torres, A (2011) ‘Mothers and Children of the International Drug War’ in Children of the Drug War, edited by Damon Barrett, International Harm Reduction Association.
• Fleetwood, J. (2011). "Five kilos: penalties and practice in the international cocaine trade." British Journal of Criminology 51: 375–393.
• Fleetwood, J (2010)  ‘Mules in the international cocaine trade: diversity and relative deprivation’ Prison Service Journal  Vol. 192, November 2010.
• Fleetwood, J (2009) Emotional work: ethnographic fieldwork in prisons in Ecuador, E-sharp Vol 14 available online at http://www.gla.ac.uk/esharp/ [10]

Book reviews:

• ‘Offending women: power, punishment and the regulation of desire, by Lynne A Haney inThe Sociological Review, Vol 58 (3) August 2010, ISSN 0038-0261.
• ‘Global Crime Today: the changing face of organised crime’ Edited by Mark Galeotti in Network Magazine, Newsletter of the British Sociological Association, no 114, Autumn 2009. ISSN: 1742 –1616
•  ‘Drogas, cárcel y género en Ecuador: La experiencia de mujeres ‘mulas’’ by Andreina Torres in Íconos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, no. 33, Vol. 13 (1), January 2009. ISSN 1390-1249

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Teaching

In addition to lecturing on all the core criminology courses, I convene the following modules:

SO533 Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice
What effect does gender have on the operation of the criminal justice system? How are men and women – as victims, offenders or professionals – treated differently within the system? How do debates about femininity and masculinity help our understanding of criminal behaviour? These are some of the questions we attempt to answer in this module. Topics include masculinity and crime, media representations of male and female offenders, gender in the courtroom and fear of crime.

SO830 Gender and Crime in a Globalised World
This masters level course examines gender, crime and criminal justice in a global context. This course allows students to examine a broad range of phenomenon, from women in organised crime and drug trafficking, to the gendered aspects of transnational incarceration; migration and criminalisation. The focus is on the UK, but the course also takes into account international research.

PhD supervision
At present, I am co-supervising PhD students examining prostitution, drug mules and human trafficking.

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