Dr Nick Gibbs

Lecturer

Department: Social Sciences

Dr Nick Gibbs is an Assistant Professor in Criminology at Northumbria University. Nick completed his PhD in 2021 at Northumbria, focussed on the use and supply of image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs). He developed this thesis into a solo-authored monograph, The Muscle Trade, published by Bristol University Press in November 2023.

Nick situates his research within the subdiscipline of critical sports criminology, exploring the intersections of crime, harm, and sport. His current focus centres on image and performance enhancing drugs and the elite football industry, and he has published broadly across this area. His broader work engages with deviant leisure, illicit markets, masculinity, harm reduction, and gym culture.

Nick's approach is interdisciplinary, and he has a particular interest in qualitative research methods, including ethnography.

Nick leads the Crime, Harm and Political Economy research group and is also lead of the Sports Criminology Network.

Though rooted in the discipline of Criminology, Nick previously worked at Leeds Trinity University as a University Teacher in Policing. Teaching on the West Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumbria Police Constable Degree Apprenticeships means that Nick is a well-rounded educator who now works across the subjects of Criminology, Sociology, and Policing.

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Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Production, consumption, and prosumption in the masculine health and fitness industry, Gibbs, N. 10 Feb 2026, Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, Edward Elgar
Relegating Football Dreams: Social Harm in the Elite Boys' Football Youth Academy System, Gibbs, N., Briggs, D. 1 Jun 2026, Criminology, Leisure and Sport, London, United Kingdom, Routledge
The IPEDs assemblage: Tracing the entanglements of biomedicine, technology, enhancement and anti-doping policies in sport and society, Piatkowski, T., Turnock, L., Gibbs, N., Duff, C. 1 Jan 2026, In: Health (United Kingdom)
Consuming 'God Juice': Using 'ethnopharmacological-connoisseurship' to situate trenbolone use and knowledge among image and performance enhancing drug communities, Piatkowski, T., Gibbs, N., Neumann, D., Dunn, M. 1 Jan 2025, In: Drug and Alcohol Review
‘Light at the end of the tunnel’: the Viva and beyond, Gibbs, N. 18 Jun 2025, Embracing the Unknown, Bristol, Policy Press
Online Ethnography, Gibbs, N., Hall, A. 17 Mar 2025, De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Criminology, Berlin, Germany, De Gruyter
‘The general concept is a safer use approach’: how image and performance enhancing drug coaches negotiate safety through community care, Piatkowski, T., Cox, L., Gibbs, N., Turnock, L., Dunn, M. 3 Sep 2025, In: Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy
The school of hard knocks: Systemic violence and the motivation to harm in boys' youth academy football, Gibbs, N., Briggs, D. 25 Aug 2025, In: Frontiers in Sociology
Tracing the Impact of Media, Cultural Narratives, and Social Perceptions on Australia's Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Communities, Piatkowski, T., Barratt, M., Coomber, R., Gibbs, N., Neumann, D., Dunn, M. 1 Dec 2025, In: Contemporary Drug Problems
Beyond the law: Exploring the impact of criminalising anabolic–androgenic steroid use on help-seeking and health outcomes in Australia, Piatkowski, T., Gibbs, N., Dunn, M. 1 Mar 2024, In: Journal of Criminology