Dr Lambros Fatsis

Overview

(Dr) Lambros Fatsis | FHEA (he/him) joined the Department as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in September 2023. He previously taught at the University of Brighton, the University of Southampton and the University of Sussex.

At Southampton, he won a Faculty Teaching Award, a ‘Most Engaging Lecturer’ award and was nominated twice for the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award and the Students’ Union ‘Best Academic Support’ award. At Sussex, he won an Excellence in Teaching Award and was nominated for a Student Led Teaching Award. At Brighton, Lambros won an Outstanding Research & Enterprise Impact Award.

Fusing Cultural Criminology with Black radical thought, his scholarly interests and expertise revolve around police racism and the criminalisation of Black/Afro-diasporic music culture(s) from the era of colonial slavery to the present day.

When he don’t teach or write, Lambros continues to exist as a never-recovering vinyl-head and lover of Afro-Caribbean music — playing all-vinyl DJ sets as Boulevard Soundsystem and boasting collaborations with household names of the UK and European soundsystem reggae scene that include: Roots Garden Records, MC Brother Culture, MC Ishu, Ras Styler (House of Roots) MC Champian (Jamdown Rockers, Tighten Up), Serocee (Jambrum), MC Trooper, DJ Cut La Vis, Anna Mystic and Blend Mishkin.

PHD SUPERVISION

Dr Fatsis would be delighted to receive proposals for doctoral studies in his areas of expertise as listed below:

• Cultural and Critical Criminology

• Criminalisation of Black/Afro-diasporic music(s)

• Police racism

• Black British history and subcultures (especially soundsystem culture)

• Sociology of public and intellectual life

Qualifications

• Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE), University of Southampton, United Kingdom
• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, Higher Education Academy, United Kingdom
• Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, Higher Education Academy, United Kingdom
• PhD in Sociology, University of Sussex, United Kingdom
• MSc in Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom
• BA Hons in Sociology, Bangor University, United Kingdom

Awards

• University of Brighton (2021). Outstanding Research & Enterprise Award
• University of Southampton (2019). Most Engaging Lecturer Students’ Union Academic Award
• University of Southampton (2018). Best Academic Support Students’ Union Academic Award
• University of Southampton (2018). Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Award
• British Society of Criminology (2018). Blogger of the Year Award
• University of Southampton (2017). Faculty Teaching Award
• University of Sussex (2016). Excellence in Teaching Award: Outstanding or Innovative Undergraduate Teaching
• University of Sussex (2015). Student-Led Teaching Award on Assessment and Feedback, and Support for the Learning Experience of Students

Languages

French (can read, understand spoken) and Greek, Modern (1453-) (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review)

Research Focus/Expertise

Dr Fatsis’ research focuses on police racism and the criminalisation of Black/Afro-diasporic music(s), drawing primarily on Cultural Criminology and Black radical thought. He is particularly interested in how certain forms of public expression and creativity are not only marginalised in the relevant academic literature, but also criminalised by law enforcement agencies and the legal penal system more broadly. As such, Dr Fatsis’ work addresses ‘deviance’ as a racialised political category in the context of Britain's colonial past and institutionally racist present, with a particular emphasis on policing.

Overview of Published Research

Parts of Dr Fatsis’ research on the policing of UK grime and drill music have been published in highly-ranked journals like The Sociological Review and Crime, Media, Culture, alongside multiple contributions to edited volumes for prestigious academic publishers and university presses. He is also the author of Policing the Beats: Black Music, Racism and Criminal Injustice and the co-author of Policing the Pandemic: How Public Health Becomes Public Order (with Melayna Lamb) and The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media (with Mark Carrigan).

Research Impact/Knowledge Exchange

Dr Fatsis regularly provides expertise on debates around policing and the criminalisation of Black music subcultures to a variety of print, broadcast and online media and international policy-making organisations that include: the British Society of Criminology blog, StopWatch, Discover Society, The Conversation, The Sociological Review blog, Identities, The Guardian, The Independent, Huffington Post, BBC Radio Sussex, the prominent Brazilian newspaper O Globo and the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In January 2019, he was announced as the winner of the first-ever ‘British Society of Criminology Blogger of the Year Award’ in recognition of his article ‘Policing Black Culture One Beat at a Time’. As an expert in the policing of Black music genres, Dr Fatsis’ work has also been featured in the British Society of Criminology Podcast, the Oxford Centre for Criminology podcast, the Media Law Podcast, the Transforming Society podcast, the Mixed in Key Podcast, a short documentary on UK drill music: ‘TRUE 808 | UK Drill’ and a longer feature on Italian and UK drill music for the national Italian television network RAI3.

Since 2020, Dr Fatsis has been regularly called upon to act as an expert witness (for the defence) in criminal trials, where rap and drill music is being used as incriminating evidence in court. He is also a core/founding member of the Prosecuting Rap Expert Network, made up of scholars and experts in rap and Black youth culture. In May 2022, Dr Fatsis was appointed as an Advisor to the Brighton-based youth music charity, AudioActive and a core/founding member of the Art, Not Evidence campaign against the criminalisation of UK drill music.

Publications by category