Dr Claire Spivakovsky

Claire Spivakovsky is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology. Claire has worked in academia, the community sector, and the government sector, developing a range of social and criminal justice projects which advocated for the rights and needs of marginalized populations.Claire’s research expertise extends across the broad fields of punishment, imprisonment, detention and social control and she specialises in issues relating to disability and law and race and crime.

Claire’s work looks beyond the repeatedly documented over-representation of racialised and disabled bodies in the criminal justice system to consider how the criminal law is but one of the tools by which these populations are being contained and controlled at this time. Claire’s research follows this interest across a wide spectrum of topics, from the inclusive education of children with disability, to the everyday practices of disability group homes, the development of specialist mental health court procedures in the criminal justice system, and the imprisonment of racialised minorities.