Rate My Professor Gail Mason

Gail Mason is Emerita Professor of Criminology in the University of Sydney Law School. She earned her LLB from the University of Queensland, Diploma in Criminology from the University of Melbourne, MA from the State University of New York, and PhD from La Trobe University. Throughout her career, Professor Mason has focused her research on crime, social justice, and exclusion, with particular emphasis on the regulation of hate crime and sexual assault. As convenor of the Australian Hate Crime Network, she has coordinated multidisciplinary efforts to tackle hate crime issues across Australia. She served as Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council-funded Hate Crime Law and Justice Project, which delivered pioneering empirical data and achieved several research firsts in Australian criminology. Her studies have provided the most comprehensive picture to date of hate crime patterns in New South Wales, predominantly linked to race and religion, informing policy debates on hate crime legislation and responses.

Professor Mason's scholarly impact is evident in her extensive publications, including the influential book Policing Hate Crime: Understanding Communities and Prejudice (2017, co-authored with JaneMaree Maher, Jude McCulloch, and Sharon Pickering), journal articles such as 'Blue Lives Matter and Hate Crime Law' (2022), 'Bias Crime Policing: "The Graveyard Shift"' (2019), 'The Hate Threshold' (2014), 'Sexual assault law and community education: A case study of New South Wales' (2020), and 'Rethinking the primacy of consent: community education and ethical sex' (2023). In recognition of her lifetime achievements in teaching, scholarship, and public engagement, she received the Distinguished Criminologist Award from the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology in 2019, the field's highest national honour. She has held key leadership roles, including Director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology from 2008 to 2012 and Vice-President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology from 2012 to 2013. Professor Mason has contributed to editorial boards of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology and Current Issues in Criminal Justice, and serves on the Corrective Services NSW Ethics Committee, extending her influence on criminal justice policy and practice.