The 27th Annual Nigel Walker Lecture - Sentencing Matters: Past, Present, and Future

On 28th May 2026, we were delighted to welcome Professor Julian Roberts to the Institute of Criminology for the 27th Annual Nigel Walker Lecture to speak on 'Sentencing Matters - Past, Present and Future'. The Nigel Walker Lecture series, inaugurated in 1997, is named in honour of the Institute's second Director, Professor Nigel Walker, who served as Wolfson Professor of Criminology from 1973 to 1984. 

Forty years have now passed since Nigel Walker’s Sentencing Law, Policy and Practice. In this presentation Professor Julian Roberts critically examines the current sentencing regime in England and Wales: has it improved since publication of that important volume? Specifically, he evaluates the state of sentencing by discussing several key indicators of a well-functioning regime. These include: the level and quality of guidance for courts; the extent to which this guidance is evidence-based and democratically based; the transparency of current practice; the use of imprisonment as a sanction; fairness in sentencing outcomes; and the level of politicization of the sentencing process. Many of these indicators are affected by the Sentencing Act 2026 which received Royal Assent in January 2026. Julian concludes by posing some questions about this Act -- the most significant sentencing legislation in a generation.

Julian Roberts is Emeritus Professor at the University of Oxford and Executive Director of the Sentencing Academy. Julian was appointed Kings Counsel (Honoris Causa) for contributions to sentencing in 2022. In 2021, he received the American Society of Criminology Sellin-Glueck Award for comparative scholarship. He was a member of the Sentencing Council of England and Wales (2010-2018), an advisor to the American Law Institute’s Sentencing Code (2017) and a member of the Canadian Sentencing Commission (1987). His latest book is Sentencing Guidelines and Commissions: Comparative Perspectives. (Oxford University Press, 2025, with A. Freiberg and R. Hester).

The lecture can be viewed here