30 Oct 2023

Jan Jordan: The power of honesty in overcoming deep pain

From Nine To Noon, 10:05 am on 30 October 2023
Head shot of a middle aged Pakeha woman.

Jan Jordan became the first woman criminology lecturer at Te Herenga Waka. Photo: Robert Cross

Professor Jan Jordan is best known as a criminology academic and victims' rights campaigner.

Over a long career at Victoria University, she's written many academic books, particularly looking at rape culture and justice.

Jordan speaks publicly about her own fight for survival as a young woman for the first time in her new memoir Snorkelling the Abyss.

She joins Kathryn to share her remarkable journey towards overcoming adversity.

This is one of Kathryn Ryan's favourite interviews of 2023: 

"Most journalists of a certain generation knew criminologist Jan Jordan as the 'go-to' academic on crime. I never knew her personal story. Jan's memoir on her struggles and suffering as a young woman with self-worth, self-harm, and suicide attempts, was un-putdownable. Her honesty on the page continued on air."