Prof Karen A Joe Laidler
Emeritus Professor
3917 2059
9.18, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus
Karen Joe Laidler is Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Centre for Criminology. Her research focuses on drugs, sex work, youth gangs, and women’s imprisonment. As a native San Franciscan, she has been involved in criminological research since the 1980s, working with non-profit organizations and government agencies in Northern California. She has worked on a variety of primary and policy related research including: evaluation of drug intervention programmes; juvenile court intervention; inmate grievance processes; bail reform; sentencing guidelines; risk assessment for juvenile detention; prison planning and classification systems for adult prisons; and drug use problems among methamphetamine users.
She moved to Hong Kong in the 1990s, and has witnessed the development of the city’s drug market over the past three decades. Her recent projects include a study on how young people obtain their drugs and social supply, drug use and risks among young gay men, investment fraud, and social harms and service access for ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong. Her current work centres on drug policy and harm reduction in Hong Kong and the East and Southeast Asia region, and on drug use and stigma among hard to reach populations.
She has held several administrative positions at HKU, including Chairman, Faculty Board, Social Sciences (2013-2024), Director, Centre for Criminology (2008-2022), Head of Department (2008-2011), and Associate Dean, Social Sciences (2002-2008).
Karen teaches criminology, social problems, and gender studies courses.
PhD
University of California, DavisRace and crime
Gender
Gangs and delinquency
Drugs
An Intersectional Lens on Drug Use and Stigma Among Hard-to-Reach Populations in Hong Kong. General Research Fund. Hong Kong Research Grants Council.
Pathways to Harm Reduction and Drug Policy in Hong Kong and East and South-East Asia: Principles, Process and Practices. Research Impact Fund. Hong Kong Research Grants Council.
Stalking: Intimate Partner Violence and Debt Collection Problems in Hong Kong. Public Policy Research Fund. HKSAR Government.
Trustee, International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (2020-2024)
Member, Law Reform Commission, Subcommittee on Reform of Sexual Offense Laws. (2008-2023)
Knowledge Exchange Award for Community Impact. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong. (2019)
President, Hong Kong Sociological Association (2014-2016)
Hong Kong Police College Research Fellow (2015-present)
Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ). (2015-present, Specialist appointed 2020)
Editorial Board
Journal of Youth Studies (Associate Editor, 2018-present)
Gender and Justice (Associate Editor, 2025-present)
Feminist Criminology (2006-7, 2014-present)
Contemporary Drug Problems (2012-present)
Punishment & Society (2013-present)
Criminology & Criminal Justice (2016-present)
Journal of Interpersonal Violence (2017-present)
Journal of Illicit Economies and Development (2021-present)
Journal of Criminal Psychology (2023-present)
Recent publications:
Laidler, K.J., Lowe, K., Li, L., Wan, C., and Chui, V. (2025) The happiness framework as a lens for addressing drug use, spirituality and the criminal justice system. The Journal of Gross National Happiness & Law. 2: 110-136
Joe Laidler, K. and Lowe, K. (2025) The Undercurrent of the Death Penalty for Drug Trafficking in Southeast and East Asia for Abolitionist States: The Case of Hong Kong. Book Chapter for Drug Laws in Asia. (Eds) Chan, W.C., Saito, M and Hor, M. In preparation for review with Cambridge Press. Pp. 246-265
Smith, V., Joe Laidler, K., Lowe, K., Li, L., & Chui, V. (2025) The perception and management of risk by people who use heroin in Hong Kong’s ‘drug-free’ society. International Journal of Drug Policy. 138: 104767.
Smith, V., Lowe, K., Joe Laidler, K., Li, L., & Chui, V. (2025). Harm reduction as “moral improvisation”: the role of frontline drug workers within Hong Kong’s abstinence-based drug policy. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy. 32(4): 392-401
Niu, Xuan and Joe Laidler, K. (2024) Between God and government: Intersections of marriage, state Law, customary law, and gender in Northwest China. Feminist Legal Studies. 33(2), 175-194.
Lowe, K. and Joe Laidler, K. (2024) Bag Politics and ‘Wall’ Street Capital: The Role of Social Capital in Social Supply Networks and Broader Society amongst Privileged Cocaine Users. Deviant Behavior, 45(1): 80-94.
Fraser, A., and Joe Laidler, K. (2023) Gangs and the Gig Economy: Triads, Precarity and Illicit Work in Hong Kong. The British Journal of Criminology. 64(1), 139-156.
Xuan NIU and Karen J. Laidler (2023) Intimacy, gender, and ethnicity: non-monogamous relationship dynamics among the Hui in Northwest China. Sexualities. 28(1-2), 60-79.
Joe-Laidler, K. A., Lowe, K., Young, S. N., & Cheung, T. H. (2023). The Legal Response to Drugs and Social Supply: The Case of Hong Kong. Hong Kong LJ, 53, 913.
Selected Journal Articles:
Coomber, R. et al., (2018) The burgeoning recognition and accommodation of the social supply of drugs in international criminal justice systems: An eleven nation comparative overview. International Journal of Drug Policy. P. 93-103.
Joe-Laidler, K.A., Lee, M., and Wong, G. (2017) Doing Criminology on Crime and Media in Asia. Crime, Media and Culture. 13(2): 135-151.
Cassini Sai Kwan Chu & Karen Joe Laidler (2016) Becoming a Male Client of Compensated Dating, Deviant Behavior, 37:1, 47-65
Moloney, M., Hunt, G., & Joe-Laidler, K. (2015). Drug sales, gender, and risk: Notions of risk from the perspective of gang-involved young adults. Substance use & misuse, 50(6), 721-732.
Joe-Laidler, K., Hunt, G., & Moloney, M. (2014). ‘Tuned Out or Tuned In’: Spirituality and Youth Drug Use in Global Times. Past & present, 222(Suppl 9), 61-80.
Niu, X., & Laidler, K. A. (2014). Understanding Domestic Violence Against Muslim Women in China. Feminist Criminology.
Dean, M., & Laidler, K. A. J. (2014). Leveling the playing field through Facebook: how females construct online playspaces. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(1), 113-129.
Lee, M., & Laidler, K. J. (2013). Doing criminology from the periphery: Crime and punishment in Asia. Theoretical Criminology. 17(2): 141-157.
Selected Book Chapters:
McDonald, T. and Laidler, K.A. (2018) Negotiating the ethics of gendered online spaces in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Tolich, M. and Ifophen, R. (eds.) The Sage Handbook in Qualitative Research Ethics. Sage: Thousand Oaks.
Laidler, K. J. (2016). Criminological Perspectives. The SAGE Handbook of Drug & Alcohol Studies: Social Science Approaches, 1673.
Hunt, G., & Joe‐Laidler, K. (2015). The culture and subcultures of illicit drug use and distribution. The Handbook of Drugs and Society, 460.
Laidler, K. J., & Lee, M. (2015). Border trading and policing of everyday life in Hong Kong. The Routledge handbook on crime and international migration, 316-328.
Selected Recent Invited Talks
Laidler, K. (2018) Overview of Regional Drug Threats and Policy Responses in Retentionist States. United Nations Expert Panel Meetings on Drug Related Offenses, Criminal Justice Responses and the Use of the Death Penalty in South East Asia, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Response to UNGASS 2016. (Feb)
Laidler, K. (2017) Criminology and Knowledge Production in the Greater China Region. University of Macau. Macau. (Feb 16).
Laidler, K. (2017) Gone South: Thinking about Crime and Its Control in the Greater China Region University of Glasgow. (March)
Laidler, K. (2017) Girls, Drugs and the Governance of the Body. School of Social and Political Sciences. University of Melbourne. (July)