My research looks at how public institutions sustain their commitments to legal protections, health care, and human rights under pressure and how signs of institutional strain can be identified and addressed as early as possible. Because I am a criminologist and social policy scholar who focuses on prisons, issues of accountability, preparedness, and public health are especially visible.

My work combines independent critical inquiry with practical collaboration. I partner with governments, prison authorities, oversight bodies, international organisations, and civil society networks to strengthen policy, accountability, and institutional preparedness.

My monograph, The English Prison Health System After a Decade of Austerity (Routledge, 2022), examined how a decade of fiscal contraction reshaped prison health governance in England. It was shortlisted for the Social Policy Association’s Richard Titmuss Award, the British Academy’s Peter Townsend Book Prize, and the British Society of Criminology’s Book Award.

Additionally, I am the principal investigator for the Penal Pandemic Project, a British Academy–funded comparative study on COVID-19 pandemic experiences in Southeast Asian prisons that seeks to inform future pandemic preparedness across Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Merging econometric analysis of prison funding between 2010 and 2023 with evaluation of 154 policy documents and insights from 37 interviews with senior officials, the Project examines how emergency measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic became embedded in prison governance, including what may be lost when in-person contact with families, lawyers, and inspectors is replaced by remote access. Working with prison authorities in these three countries, my team and I are developing a regional framework for future emergency preparedness, with potential for adaptation in other jurisdictions.

My current European research asks whether patterns in how states engage with prison monitoring bodies can provide oversight organisations with earlier warning of institutional strain. Across my projects, I have secured more than £500,000 in research funding.

My research has informed policy and practice both nationally and internationally. I advise the cross-government review of prisoner health led by the Chief Medical Officer for England and the UN Joint Programme on Human Rights on prisons in the Philippines. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has adopted an inspection benchmark developed from my research, and so too has my work informed World Health Organization monitoring protocols for places of detention. In addition, I co-authored the WHO Prison and Health Handbook and provided written evidence to four House of Commons Justice Committee inquiries. My research has been covered by The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Byline Times, and the Daily Mirror.

I am a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Programme Director for the BSc in Criminology at the University of Bristol. I co-edit the journal Justice, Power and Resistance and sit on the international editorial board of the International Journal of Prison Health, while also jointly leading the Social Policy Association’s Social Harm Policy Group. In 2025, I was recognised as a top-three finalist for the European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

I welcome PhD proposals on penal policy, institutional accountability, prison health governance, and preparedness in closed institutions. I also welcome enquiries about research collaboration, policy engagement, and media. I can be reached at Nasrul.Ismail@bristol.ac.uk.