Molly Ackhurst

Dr. Molly Ackhurst is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Greenwich, affiliated with the School of Law and Criminology under the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences. With over a decade of experience in frontline sexual violence advocacy and abolitionist feminist scholarship, her research explores the affective dimensions of feminist politics around sexual violence and carceral systems. She holds a PhD from Birkbeck College (2023) and previously taught at Birkbeck and LSBU. Her work challenges carceral logics, advocating for transformative justice frameworks in gender-based violence contexts.

Education: BA (Hons), MA, PhD in Criminology/Sociology, PGCert in Higher Education, and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Her research focuses on feminist entanglements with state systems, creative justice praxis, and decolonizing anti-violence work. Recent publications include contributions to Rape: Creative and Transformative Approaches to Justice (2022) and collaborative discussions on transnational transformative justice.

She actively engages in public discourse through podcasts (e.g., Surviving Society) and academic events, such as the Oxford seminar on abolitionist imaginaries. Her work emphasizes intersectional critiques of carceral systems and fosters community-based alternatives to state-led justice mechanisms.