The 26th Nigel Walker Lecture: Justice in an Age of Unreason: Why Criminology Matters

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Recording

We invite you to join us for the 26th annual Nigel Walker Lecture with keynote speaker Professor Lesley McAra.

The year 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Nigel Walker’s book:   Crime and Punishment in Britain (University of Edinburgh Press).  In the preface to the first edition,  Walker draws a distinction between criminologists and penal reformers.  For Walker, criminology should not concern itself with moral or political enquiry (as penal reformers are wont to do), but rather should focus on a ‘logical or purely scientific appreciation of fact’. 

Against a contemporary backdrop characterised by political precarity and turmoil, and threats to the very foundations of democracy and the rule of law, this lecture will address the central question raised by Walker’s preface: what should be the concerns of criminology today?

Drawing on Scotland as a case study, the lecture will explore the ways in which criminological research and activism can make a significant contribution to the conditions underpinning more just social orders.  As Walker himself concludes:  ‘This is not to suggest that Scottish differences (of which Scots themselves are proud to the point of narcissism [sic]) are necessarily for the better but merely to emphasise the fact that the boundaries of practical possibility are wider than [many] believe.’  Indeed, the Scottish case ably demonstrates the importance of placing science in the service of penal reform and why criminology, in this age of unreason, continues to matter.

Lesley McAra is Professor of Penology in the School of Law, University of Edinburgh. A past President of the European Society of Criminology, her principal research interests lie in the fields of youth crime, juvenile justice and the sociology of punishment. She is Co-director (with  Susan McVie) of the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime. In 2018, Lesley was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to criminology and in 2021 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She has won multiple prizes for research impact, including, in 2019, the ESRC award for Outstanding Public Policy Impact. 

A free drinks reception will be held in the lower atrium following the lecture.

Please note that this lecture will be recorded.

For any questions, please contact dirpa@crim.cam.ac.uk