Skip to navigation Skip to content
Deakin University Criminology

Dr Matthew Mitchell

Dr Matthew Mitchell is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. Matthew has previously held academic positions at La Trobe University and the University of Melbourne. He is a distinguished early-career researcher and educator, having received multiple awards for his contributions to research, teaching, and community engagement. Situated at the intersection of queer, critical, and cultural criminologies, Matthew’s research projects to date have focused on interactions between LGBTQ people and legal systems, news media representations of harm and justice, and the impact of technological design on the safety and experiences of LGBTQ communities. These include a community-engaged inquiry into transgender and gender-diverse people’s experiences with the Victorian criminal legal system and a study into the establishment of The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Matthew’s PhD, which is the subject of a forthcoming book scheduled for publication by Bristol University Press in 2026, examines the legal regulation of transgender young people’s gender-affirming hormone use in Australia. Matthew has also contributed to theoretical and methodological development in criminology, having published on the conceptualisation of technology-facilitated violence and qualitative approaches to analysing legal texts. Matthew is currently working on two new research projects. The first analyses LGBTQ news media representations of anti-queer violence to understand how these publications construct the nature, cause, and solutions to such violence. The second investigates how technological design influences LGBTQ people’s experiences negotiating risk, pleasure, and safety on dating and hook-up apps. These studies aim to deepen criminological understanding of the relationship between LGBTQ communities and their experiences of harm and justice-seeking, examining how online mediation shapes and contributes to these experiences. If you are a student interested in developing a research project in queer criminology, or if you are from the media or industry and looking to collaborate on issues related to LGBTQ people and the criminal legal system, Matthew welcomes the opportunity to collaborate. Matthew is particularly interested in projects that aim to use academic research to inform changes in policy and practice that will tangibly improve the lives of LGBTQ people impacted by the system and reduce the number of people affected.
Twitter Linkedin

Selected Publications

  • Mitchell, M. (2023) ‘Ontological Governance: Gender, Hormones, and the Legal Regulation of Transgender Young People.’ Feminist Legal Studies, 31(3), pp. 317–341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-023-09518-9
  • Wood, M., Mitchell, M. et al. (2023) ‘Inviting, affording, and translating harm: Understanding the role of technological mediation in technology-facilitated violence.’ British Journal of Criminology, 63(6), pp. 1384–1404. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azac095
  • Mitchell, M. et al. (2022) ‘Criminalising Gender Diversity: Trans and Gender Diverse People’s Experiences with the Victorian Criminal Legal System.’ International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 11(4), pp. 99–112. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.2225
  • Mitchell, M. (2022) ‘Analysing the Law Qualitatively.’ Qualitative Research Journal, 23(1), pp. 102–113. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-04-2022-0061
  • Mitchell, M. et al. (2022) ‘Technology-facilitated Violence: A Conceptual Review.’ Criminology & Criminal Justice, online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958221140549
  • Mitchell, M. and Rogers, J. (2021) ‘Prohibiting the Queer Body: Gender-affirmation, Female Genital Cutting, and the Promise of Gender Intelligibility.’ Critical Criminology, 29(4), pp. 707–721. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-021-09580-2
  • Mitchell, M. (2021) ‘The Discursive Production of Public Inquiries: The Case of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.’ Crime, Media, Culture, 17(3), pp. 353–374. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659020953451

June 7, 2024

back to top