Kanika Samuels Wortley
PhD
Associate Professor
Canada Research Chair in Systemic Racism, Technology and Criminal Justice
Criminology and JusticeFaculty of Social Science and Humanities
Dr. Samuels-Wortley’s research explores the intersection of race, racism, and the criminal justice system. Her research aims to advance critical race discourse in Canada through empirical mixed-methods approaches.
- PhD - Sociology University of Waterloo, Ontario
- MA - Criminology Ontario Tech University, Ontario
- BA - Criminology University of Toronto, Ontario
- In Plain Sight: White Privilege, Racial Profiling, and Nova Scotia's Mass Casualty (Keynote Speaker)
From Strategy to Action: A Black & African Nova Scotian Justice Symposium, Halifax, NS, October 2023 - Safety of our Cities Conference: A discussion on race-based data (Panelist), Edmonton Police and Edmonton Police Foundation, Edmonton, AB, Sept 2023
- Cultural Implications for the Public Complaint Process & Review Decisions (Panelist), Canadian Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, Halifax, NS, May 2023
- Racial Bias, White Privilege and Threat to Public Safety, St. Mary’s University, Halifax, March 2023
- No Threat: White Privilege, Racial Bias, and the Crisis of Police Legitimacy in Canada, (Keynote Speaker), Canadian Law and Society Association, February 2023
- Exploring the lived experiences of those who "fit the description"- The impact of racial profiling on Black youth in Toronto, Centre international de Criminologie Comparée, University of Montreal, October 2022
- Where Privacy Meets Power: Questions of Data and Racial Inequality. New Zealand Privacy Commissioner, May 2022
- “It is just something you have to come to terms with” Exploring Black and Indigenous Youth Experiences with racial profiling through counter-storytelling. (Virtual) Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) at Congress, May 2022
- Hate Crime in Canada. The Globe and Mail and Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Toronto, CA, March 2022.
- Canadian youth perceptions of the police: A quantitative analysis. Annual meeting of the Centre of Criminological Research, University of Alberta, Alberta, CA, March 2022.
- United Nations Report on Police Use of Force Against People of African Descent, Annual meeting of Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Las Vegas, NV, March 2022.
- Race and policing in Canada: Two years after George Floyd. Laurier University, February 2022
- Public safety in a plural urban context and profiling issues (Sécurité publique en contexte urbain pluriel et enjeux de profilages. Metropolis: Multiculturalism @50: Diversity, Inclusion and Eliminating Racism. October 2021.
- Who you going to call? Not the police. Centre of Criminological Research, University of Alberta. Guest Speaker, September 2021.
- Racial and social profiling. McGill University, Max Bell School of Public Policy. Expert Guest Speaker, March 2021.
- To charge or treat: Exploring racial bias in the implementation of youth diversion programs in Canada. University of Winnipeg. March 2021.
- Black experiences with law enforcement in Canada. Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism. Guest Speaker, February 2021.
- The weight of “fitting the description”. Black youths’ narratives of Canadian policing, Australian National University, School of Regulation and Global Governance (REGNET), Panelist, Sept 2019.
- Samuels-Wortley, K. (2024). Racialization and Crime. In N. Boyd (Ed.) Understanding Crime in Canada: An Introduction to Criminology, Third Edition. Emond Publishing, March 2024
- Samuels-Wortley, K. (2024) Community Policing, Police Militarization, and Canada’s Colonial Project. In Sebastián Sclofsky and Analicia Mejia Mesinas (Eds.) Police and State Crime in the Americas: Southern and Post Colonial Perspectives, New York, Palgrave Macmillan
- Greene, C., Urbanik, M.-M., Samuels-Wortley, K. (2022). “It stays with you for life”: The everyday nature and impact of police violence in Toronto’s inner city. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 19, pg. 1-11.
- Samuels-Wortley, K (2022). Black on Blue, will not do: Navigating Canada’s evidence-based policing community as a Black academic: A personal counter-story, in Derek Silva and Mathieu Deflem (Eds.) Sociology of Crime, Law, and Deviance: Diversity in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies, pg. 63-82. Emerald Publishing.
- Garcia-Hallett, J., Samuels-Wortley, K., Henry, T.K., and Boyles, A. (2022). Reclaiming our stories: Centering BIWOC voices and experiences in the carceral state. Qualitative Criminology, Vol. 11(3), pg. 1-19.
- Perry, B., and Samuels-Wortley, K (2021). We’re not where we should be: Enhancing law enforcement responses to hate crime. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Vol. 63 (2), pg. 68-98. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjccj.2020-0057.
- Samuels-Wortley, K. (2021) To serve and protect whom? Using composite counter-storytelling to explore Black and Indigenous youth experiences and perceptions of the police in Canada. Crime and Delinquency, Vol 67(8), pg. 1137-1164. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128721989077
- Kabiri., S., Shadmanfaat, S., Samuels-Wortley, K., and Gallupe, O (2020). Does moral identity matter in situational action theory? Some evidence of Iranian fans’ cyberbullying perpetration. International Criminal Justice Review, Vol. 30(4), pg. 406-420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1057567720941584
- Samuels-Wortley, K. (2019) Youthful discretion: Police selection bias in access to pre-charge diversion programs in Canada. Race and Justice, https://doi.org/10.1177/2153368719889093.
- Samuels-Wortley, K. (2019). Violence against Black youth in the great white north: Exploring the prevalence of victimization among Black women from a Canadian context. In A. Kalunta-Crumpton (Ed.) pp. 229-248, Violence Against Women of African Descent: Global Perspectives. New York: Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield.
- SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2022-2024
Principal Investigator (PI) - SSHRC Partnership Grant, 2022-2029
Co-applicant (Dr. Sandra Bucerius, University of Alberta, PI) - SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, 2022-2024
Co-applicant (Dr. Alex McCelland, Carleton University, PI) - British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner (BCOHRC) Grant, 2021
Principal Investigator (PI)
- Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) Emerging Scholar Grant, 2019
Principal Investigator (PI) - Visiting Scholar Fellowship, School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University, 2019
Principal Investigator (PI)
- CRMN 3056U Race-ing Justice