On 1 September 2026, the ANZSOC Teaching and Learning Thematic Group facilitated a hybrid webinar about the role of Criminology education in supporting Work-Integrated Learning. The event was hosted by Flinders Criminology at its City campus but engaged wider Group membership online, reaching members across Australia and New Zealand.
The catalyst for discussion, led by Dr Vicky Nagy (UTas), was the need to balance the exposure of students to the realities of diverse vocational landscapes within criminal justice-related sectors, while identifying the intersectional tensions facing critical Criminology academics in navigating these relationships in the context of the:
Feeding the Beast: Challenges and Tensions
The initial argument (and theme of the webinar) centred on Criminology’s complicity in “feeding the beast” of criminal justice systems and their primary institutions and practices of policing and incarceration. Some of the identified issues concerned the erosion of skills attributed to the push for ‘job ready’ graduates, the outsourcing and expectation of job training and professional development onto universities without commensurate financial or administrative support from industry, and the pretention of critical scholars working in partnership with systems that have historically been sites of chronic and sustained harms. As evidence grows of the psychosocial harms of these punitive systems towards individuals and communities, primarily those targeted by but also those employed within them, emphasis was on questioning the ethics of the nature and extent of the training of our students for and sending them into these settings.
Participants reflected upon the difficult balance between those realities versus the possibilities for individual impact and positive change. Participants spoke of their own frustrations and identified the threats to their own levels of passion and enthusiasm, where dents to confidence, impact, and capacity to meaningfully support others had, at times, led to disillusionment and burnout. Balancing the needs of industry against those within the higher education sector is having a disproportionate effect upon passionate educators, which often transfers onto graduates and diverts many from taking up key roles within the CJ sector. It is the flow-on effects of this loss of passion and potential for change that contributes to the entrenchment and perpetuation of a myriad ongoing harms within and caused by the CJS, because perhaps worse than feeding the beast is not doing anything at all.
Moving Forward: Possibilities for Change
In contrast, the webinar participants identified that students often come to Criminology with a strong desire to have positive impact and offer meaningful solutions to the many wicked problems facing all parts of society. This is arguably also true of those teaching in Criminology. This industry-educational setting then is crucial, most notably in terms of getting the balance right regarding curriculum but also in fostering sufficient and direct critique of the system, so that the reality of which does not ward off potential change-makers but equally does not simply bend to reinforce the status quo. This led to discussion of what is possible, which included fostering passion and curiosity while simultaneously developing resilience, championing depth of knowledge and critical thinking alongside transferable skills, including recognising the need for data-driven practice and most important acknowledging that that Criminology graduates can have an impact outside of policing and corrections.
Despite the notion that, as Criminology educators, we have the potential to “feed the beast”, the discussion was ultimately positive and highlighted the many ways we can collaborate within and across our institutions, to innovate, undertake research, and to create and apply best practice to enhance the learning experiences of our students, with the aim of avoiding the status quo. This is what we, as a Teaching and Learning Thematic Group are committed to.
So, how will we start to address this – what’s next? We have several aims and ideas for the next few months, as follows:
Thank you again to those who attended our first T+L Thematic Group webinar and shared their experiences and thoughts about “feeding the beast”. We look forward to catching up with you and many more in the weeks and months to come.
If you have any colleagues who wish to become a member of this Thematic Group, please encourage them to contact us – or just introduce us – and we’ll take it from there.
Andrew, Vicky, and Gaelle
Co-Convenors, ANZSOC Teaching and Learning Thematic Group
