Thematic session #4 | Policing, partnerships and violence prevention

Dr. Felia Allum 

Dr Felia Allum is Professor in the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath. Between 2018-2022, she was a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow researching gender and organised crime. Her research focuses on West European Politics, Organized crime, Italian Mafias (Neapolitan Camorra), gender and political corruption. She is also interested in how academic findings can be transferred into creative outputs. She is a keen teacher. In July 2016, she was awarded the University of Bath’s Innovation in Teaching and Learning Award and in April 2019, she was awarded the Jennie Lee Prize for Outstanding Teaching by the Political Studies Association (UK). She has just published with Artist, Anna Mitchell, ‘Graphic Narratives on organised crime, gender and power’ (Routledge, 2022) which allows women involved in organized crime groups to tell their life stories.

Rodrigo Canales 

Rodrigo Canales is Faculty Director of Questrom’s Social Impact Program at Boston University. Before, he was Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management, where he taught the Innovator Perspective. He sits in the advisory board of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT; he spent the 2014-2015 academic year advising the Mexican government on the US-Mexico bilateral relationship; and sits in the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy.

Rodrigo does research at the intersection of organizational theory and institutional theory, with a special interest in the role of institutions for economic development. Rodrigo studies how individuals can purposefully change complex organizations or systems. In his current research, among other areas of interest, Rodrigo studies the institutional implications of the Mexican war on drugs and explores how to build effective, resilient, and trusted police organizations in Mexico.

Majd Hindi

Majd has been working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for over five years. He started with IOM Iraq’s Community Policing (CP) programme and later moved to IOM South Sudan as a CP specialist and CP project officer. He recently returned to Iraq as a technical CP consultant. During his work with IOM, Majd supported and advised police services in the area of CP as part of the police reform programmes.

Majd focuses on police capacity building and community engagement at both the policy and operational levels, including contributing to the development of CP training curricula, policy, standard operating procedures, strategic plans, and gender-sensitive approaches within the CP framework. Majd is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Terrorism, Policing, and Security Studies at Liverpool John Moores University.

Superintendent Justin Srivastava

Justin Srivastava has served as a UK police superintendent (28 years) on the Lancashire Violence Reduction Network whilst also holding national roles in Trauma Informed practice, Public Health Approaches and Serious Violence. He holds a BSC hons in Social Policy/Criminology and an MSc (Distinction) in Early Action, Organizational Development and Learning Organizations.

He has undertaken the following: National Police and Health Consensus working with national policing and health/social care partners to address vulnerability demand/early intervention; Co- wrote national guidance on public health approaches, early intervention and police/health collaboration; Developed strategic and operational practice for the National Police Well-being Service; Honorary contracts with both Public Health England/NHS England. Justin is a member of GLEPHA’s Special Interest Groups on neuro-diversity and trauma-informed policing.

Dr. Joanna Goldthorpe

Joanna Goldthorpe is a chartered psychologist and research fellow with the Equitable Placed Based Health & Care Theme for the ARC Northwest coast. She works one day a week as an NIHR Research Design Service advisor based at the Manchester Centre for Health Psychology, University of Manchester, and has worked in the area of social and health services research since 2003, having held previous roles at Birkbeck College, University of London and the Centre for Public Health Research at the University of Chester. She gained her PhD in Dental and Commmunity Public Health in 2012. In 2018, she secured funding from NIHR for The Polar Bear Study, a collborative project between MCHP and the Dental Health Unit which started early January 2020. She is a co-PI and research lead for the evaluation of the Lancashire Violence Prevention Network, a collaboration led by Lancashire Constabulary and lead a number of research projects that focus on reducing health inequalities.

Releshni Karan

Releshni is an Advisor at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Regional Office based in the Pacific. She is the focal point for Rule of Law and Democracy, Gender and civic space. A major part of her work involves capacity building government agencies, parliamentarians, judiciary and lawyers, civil society, women groups and law enforcement. She has trained several police officers, correction officers as well as INTERPOL based in Singapore. She holds a Masters in Law as well as a Masters in International Relations and Diplomacy. She has a Bachelors in Law and various Australian accredited qualifications in Leadership and Management. She has been a practicing lawyer for over 10 years and Director of the largest Government ministry in Fiji for 4 years.

Deputy Commissioner Itendra Nair

Itendra Nair is the Deputy Commissioner of the Fiji Police Force and is amongst the highly qualified officers in the Fiji Police Force. He has a Master’s in Business Administration, a Bachelor’s Degree in Management and Information Systems, has done most courses offered to officers and has even spent 12 months in Quantico in the United States of America training with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. He worked under atleast 10 Police Commissioners and witnessed their styles of leadership, what they care for and how they manage the resources. He has served in the United Nations Mission In Sudan, Darfur and Cambodia and has been the UNPOL Chief of Staff in Juba/South Sudan from 2013 to November 2015.