Mitra Mokhtari

Assistant Professor, Critical Criminology

Mitra Mokhtari standing outside in front of a building.

Office: STH 423
905-688-5550 x4468
[email protected]

Education:
PhD, University of Toronto, Sociology 
MA, University of Alberta, Sociology 
HBA, University of Toronto, Sociology & Criminology & Socio-Legal Studies

I am a critical interdisciplinary scholar focusing on the expansive ways we understand the carceral state. My work has focused on how the university (and other institutions of education) are connected to the infrastructures of criminal justice and violence. I’m also interested in exploring the curriculum and field of criminology, especially in the Canadian context.

My doctoral work investigates the ways we can think about how criminology and the university is part of the carceral state. I also work on projects about the state violence that people experiencing homelessness endure, AI and the university, and campus police.

I focus on work that challenges, interrupts, and expands our criminological and sociological imaginations.

Research Interests

  • Critical Carceral Studies
  • Critical University Studies
  • Abolition
  • Critical Criminology
  • Violence
  • The Carceral State

Selected Publications

  • Mokhtari, Mitra. 2025. “We need to understand that we are dealing with humans”: Penal Spectatorship and Experiential Learning in Criminology. Social Problems. spaf041.
  • Mitra Mokhtari, Marta Urbanik, Katharina Maier, and Carolyn Greene. 2025. “They steal your shit. You don’t get it back”: The Proliferation of Police Violence Against Unhoused Community Members by Bylaw Officers. Socius, 11.
  • Mokhtari, Mitra. 2025. “Who better to be training them?!”: Renewed Moments of Liberal Carceral Expansion and the Role of Higher Education. The British Journal of Criminology. azaf020.
  • Mokhtari, Mitra, and Phil Goodman. 2024. “Critical Criminology, Canadian Edition.” Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 1-22.
  • Mokhtari, Mitra. 2023. “Markers of Entanglement: Survival strategies within the neoliberal university and the promise of carceral futures.” Punishment & Society. 26(1), 128-146.

Currently Teaching

  • SOCI 1P91 – Introduction to Sociology II
  • SOCI 3P12 – Quantitative Methods II
  • SOCI 4P11 – Critical Approaches to Applied Social Research Design

Graduate Student Supervision

I am willing to supervise and support research projects that fall within or alongside the following general research areas/topics: sociology of punishment, sociology of education, abolition, critical criminology, sociology of sociology, policing, violence, the university, higher education, criminal justice reform, police education, pedagogy.