Associate Professor Diana Johns serves as Chair of Criminology in the School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Melbourne. She earned her PhD in Criminology from the University of Melbourne in 2014, based on research into men's experiences of prison release as part of the ARC-funded Australian Prisons Project, for which she received a PhD scholarship. Prior degrees include an MA by Research in Applied Criminology from RMIT University in 2005 and a BA in Criminal Justice Administration from RMIT University in 2000. Her career trajectory encompasses roles as Lecturer in Justice and Legal Studies at RMIT University from 2012 to 2014, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Aberystwyth University's Department of Law and Criminology from 2015 to 2016 in collaboration with the Youth Justice Board Cymru, and Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Melbourne since 2016, progressing to her current Associate Professor position.

A qualitative, community-engaged researcher, Johns specializes in the effects of criminalisation, the impacts of imprisonment, and the potential of restorative, relational, and reintegrative justice practices. Her work particularly addresses youth justice, young people in conflict with the law, post-prison transitions, and racialised criminalisation affecting communities such as African Australians and South Sudanese youth. Key publications include her monograph Being and Becoming an Ex-Prisoner (Routledge, 2017), which examines ex-prisoners' reintegration and liminal experiences; Place, Race and Politics: The Anatomy of a Law and Order Crisis (Emerald, 2021, co-authored with Leanne Weber et al.), analyzing demonizing media narratives post-Moomba 2016; and Coproduction and Criminal Justice (Routledge, 2022, co-edited), exploring collaboration in criminological research and practice. Notable articles encompass Ecological Youth Justice: Understanding the Social Ecology of Young People's Prolific Offending (Youth Justice, 2017), cited in policy documents in Australia and the UK; The Disabling Effects of Imprisonment: Towards Preventive Intervention (Social Justice, 2018); and Relational Security: Balancing Care and Control in a Youth Justice Detention Setting in Australia (Children and Youth Services Review, 2023). Johns has led or contributed to evaluations of the Youth Diversion Pilot Program for the Children's Court of Victoria, restorative responses to adolescent family violence, the e-recovery app for the Neighbourhood Justice Centre, therapeutic approaches in youth justice custodial settings, Access to Justice during COVID-19 for newly arrived communities, the Empowering African Mothers Project with AAFRO and Afri-Aus Care, and Art as Counter Archive on Parkville Youth Justice Centre. She founded and co-convenes the Justice-involved Young People Network at the University of Melbourne and delivered the keynote address at the 2022 Scottish National Youth Justice Conference. In 2023, she was an IAS Fellow at Durham University, advancing research on the abolitionist horizon of youth detention.

Professional Email: diana.johns@unimelb.edu.au