Life at Oxford: One Month In

To start off this post, here are some random things I thought I would share with you:

1. I stopped checking the weather first thing in the morning because it never changes (it rains a lot)

2. I now check the pound to dollar exchange rate in the morning to figure out when to make my rent and tuition payments

3. Tea time is actually a thing people do

4. Police officers almost never carry guns

5. Pizza is, as a rule of thumb, never the right order at restaurants

6. People do school work at pubs

7. Contactless cards are all the rage

Now, onto the substantive thoughtful part of this post!

My course is going great. The criminology faculty are pretty stellar and they are often cited in the research we are reading for class. What I have found particularly fascinating is the ideological composition of my fellow students. Studying criminology in the US generally attracts like minded students and scholars who are indignant about the injustices of our criminal justice system, particularly with respect to marginalized communities and impoverished communities. Here at Oxford, people approach criminology with quite different perspectives: some students are police officers curious about how to more effectively crack down on crime, some students are prosecutors trying to figure out what role victims should play in the criminal justice process, and some students are historians curious about the evolution of punishment and prisons over time. In many ways it's refreshing to hear a wide array of thoughts about our readings and lectures. Also, I feel much more comfortable asking some challenging questions that I suppressed during my time at Yale.

One thing I’m especially excited to be involved with this year is the Immigration Clinic at HMP (Her Majesty’s Prison) Huntercombe. This clinic is a partnership between the Oxford Criminology Department, the Oxford Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, a legal aid law firm, and the HM (Her Majesty’s) Prison and Probation Service. At one level, I get to see how these four different organizations all work by being involved with this single law clinic. But more importantly, I genuinely have the opportunity to do impactful work and help people. Basically, the law clinic serves incarcerated foreign nationals (non-UK citizens) who face deportation upon completion of their sentence by giving legal advice, filing asylum claims, and challenging deportation orders.

At this point, you might find yourself wondering, well, why shouldn’t these ‘criminals’ be deported? The answer is complicated, but consider this case:

A black man is arrested for selling drugs, and due to racists structures, he gets placed in a foreign national prison because he can’t prove he is a UK citizen. His parents are from Nigeria, but he was born in the UK and has lived in the UK his entire life. In fact, he has never even been to Nigeria. He was going to apply for a UK passport a few years ago, but just never went through the process because its expensive and he didn’t foresee himself traveling anytime soon. Now, the UK Immigration Services wants to deport him when his sentence ends next year.

Believe it or not, the law clinic pursued about a dozen cases almost exactly like this last year. Without the law clinic, these men would stand almost no chance against the UK government. Like the US, the UK is increasingly intolerant of and harsh towards immigrants.

My role as a law clinic case worker is to go to the prison every other week and conduct first evaluations by interviewing men who are seeking legal advice. These interviews act as the first point of contact between incarcerated men and the law clinic. They last about 30 minutes and cover a ton of ground to give the attorneys enough information to determine if the men have a win-able case. Here is a great article in the Guardian that highlights the attorney leading the law clinic:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/14/the-lawyer-who-takes-the-cases-no-one-wants

I have also been getting involved with the Oxford Club Tennis Team, have continued to engage with sports journalism by becoming the media representative for the OUBC (Oxford University Boat Club) which is the rowing team here, and am still hoping to get in the air with the gliding team once the weather clears up.

This past Thursday, the Oxford Rotary Club hosted their annual welcome dinner at the Oxford Spires Hotel (quite fancy) and I got to meet my sponsor here. His name is the Honorable Christopher Tyler (pretty wild title). He served as a high court judge during his career and now serves as the Queens represntitive in his home county. This means, every time the Queen or someone from the Royal Family comes to his area of the country, he serves as their host and tour guide. Oh, and he refers to the Queen as "Liz"... (her name in Queen Elizabeth). He was awesome, welcoming, and we had some great banter. He is the board of a charity in the UK called "New Leaf," which helps re-entering men get jobs and support after being released from prison. He's promised to get me involved soon.

Overall, life is pretty great here. This upcoming week I have exciting plans. I’m going to see Samantha Power (Former US Ambassador to the UN under Obama) speak on Monday, on Wednesday I’m going to dinner at this pub in the middle of the local state park that you can only access by walking three mile through a forest, and Thursday I am going to the prison to conduct interviews for the law clinic. Sometimes I do find myself missing my friends quite a bit, but slowly and surely I am making friendships here which is fun. It’s definitely not easy building a new life at a new school in a new country, 7000 miles from home. But I love the challenge (most of the time).

Thanks for following my journey and will post again soon!