Aditya Ranjan is a Doctoral Researcher in Criminology, Sociology, and Social Policy. He holds an MPhil in Criminological Research from the University of Cambridge, UK and a BA LLB (Hons) with a specialisation in Constitutional Law from Nirma University, India. His research examines the impact of caste on prison social life, including interactions and relationships.
Aditya’s research interests include working with criminal justice institutions, legal aid, the digitisation of justice systems and caste. He has experience in public policy research and has worked alongside NITI Aayog (the official think tank for the Government of India), the Supreme Court of India, and the World Bank on various subjects, including judicial reforms, the criminal justice system, and digitising judicial institutions in India.
Doing Caste When Doing Time: A Study of the Influence of Caste on Prison Social Life
PGR Supervisors: Dr Neema Trivedi-Bateman and Dr Amy Cortvriend
Aditya’s study seeks to examine the extent to which caste influences friendships, relationships, and everyday interactions within prisons, and how these dynamics shape prison social life. Although caste-based inequalities and discrimination remain significant social issues across South Asia and within the South Asian diaspora, there has been limited academic attention to caste in prison settings.
Combined with the practical challenges of conducting prison research, this has resulted in a lack of systematic knowledge about the role and strength of caste in contemporary prison life. Aditya’s research addresses this gap through a mixed-methods approach, integrating ethnographic observations with social network analysis in an Indian prison.
Ranjan, A. (2025). Analysing the Underutilisation of Legal Aid Among Undertrial Prisoners in Jharkhand, India. In The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South (pp. 1–21). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74932-2_44-1