Dr Alpa Parmar
Small Group Project 2021-23
Race Matters: A New Dialogue Between Criminology and Sociology
The Race Matters network will bring together scholars working on race and crime by hosting a one-day symposium in order to create an effective space and opportunity for academic exchange. A website will be developed and launched and will provide a virtual home for scholars working on race and crime. The network will focus on showcasing the work of minority ethnic scholars in a bid to ensure representation and networks of support for minority ethnic academics in universities across the world.
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Biography
Dr Alpa Parmar specialises in race and criminal justice and her research focuses on the intersection between criminal law, race, and migration control. Her empirical work has explored the impacts of police involvement in migration control, the operation of immigration tribunals for foreign national people involved in the criminal justice system and the uneven consequences of these processes for racial minorities. Theoretically, Alpa is interested in the potential for criminal justice encounters to influence and shape experiences of racism, citizenship, belonging and nationality. She has also conducted life history research with young people belonging to minority ethnic groups who have become entangled with the criminal justice system. Alpa is currently working on a project that examines the relationship between guilty pleas and race.
Alpa is an Associate Director of Border Criminologies and former academic member of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. At Cambridge, Alpa lectures and supervises students in criminal law, criminology, sentencing and the penal system, criminal procedure and evidence, and criminal justice and human rights.
Dr Parmar completed her BA in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge, following which she gained an MPhil in Criminology and PhD at the University at Cambridge. Alpa held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and she was Departmental Lecturer at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford prior to joining the Law Faculty at Cambridge in 2022.
Alpa is an Associate Director of Border Criminologies and former academic member of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. At Cambridge, Alpa lectures and supervises students in criminal law, criminology, sentencing and the penal system, criminal procedure and evidence, and criminal justice and human rights.
Dr Parmar completed her BA in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge, following which she gained an MPhil in Criminology and PhD at the University at Cambridge. Alpa held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and she was Departmental Lecturer at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford prior to joining the Law Faculty at Cambridge in 2022.
Biographical details correct as of 30.04.26