24th Bill McWilliams Lecture

Institute of Criminology

Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge

<h2>Speaker</h2><p>Professor Gwen Robinson <em>(Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Sheffield)</em></p><p>With respondent Nicola Carr <em>(Professor in Criminology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham)</em></p><h2>Event Schedule</h2><ul><li><strong>1.00pm</strong>: Buffet Lunch</li><li><strong>2.00pm</strong>: Lecture</li></ul><h2>Biographies</h2><p><strong>Gwen Robinson</strong></p><p>Gwen is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Sheffield, where she has been involved in research concerning probation work for 20 years.  After completing an MSc in Applied Social Studies and a Diploma in Social Work at the University of Oxford in 1996, Gwen started her research career at Oxford’s Probation Studies Unit, focusing on the risk/need assessment instruments which were emerging at that time. She completed a PhD on risk in probation practice at the University of Wales, Swansea, in 2001, before joining a team at the University of Sheffield which was commissioned by the Home Office to evaluate a number of restorative justice schemes in cases involving adult offenders. She was appointed to a lectureship at Sheffield in 2002, and since then has worked on a range of projects with colleagues across Europe, including the COST Action on Offender Supervision in Europe (2012-2016) where, with Professor Kerstin Svensson, she co-led a Working Group on probation practice. Gwen and Kerstin went on to co-chair the European Society of Criminology Working Group on Community Sanctions and Measures (2014-17). Gwen is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Probation Journal and the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice and the British Journal of Criminology. Since 2014 her research has focused on the process and impacts of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, including their impact on probation work in courts, and she is currently involved (with colleagues from 4 other Universities) in an ESRC-funded project focusing on probation unification.</p><p><strong>Nicola Carr</strong></p><p>Nicola is a Professor in Criminology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham, where she is the Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange. Prior to becoming an academic Nicola worked as a Probation Officer in London. She is editor of the Probation Journal, an editorial board member of the Irish Probation Journal, and a co-editor (with Gwen Robinson and Ebony Ruhland) of a new Routledge series: Studies in Probation and Community Sanctions. She has served as a Scientific Expert to the Council of Europe’s Council of Penological Co-Operation (PC-CP), where she helped to develop Guidelines Regarding Recruitment, Selection, Education, Training and Professional Development of Prison and Probation Staff. Nicola is co-editor (with Lol Burke, Emma Cluley Steve Collett and Fergus McNeill) of a forthcoming book Reimagining Probation Practice: Reforming Rehabilitation in an age of Penal Excess ­(Routledge).</p><h2>History behind the Lecture</h2><p>Bill McWilliams, who died in 1997, had a prestigious career as a probation practitioner, researcher and writer. His quartet of articles on the probation service’s development up to the point at which the “punishment in the community” debate began, is now widely regarded as its definitive history of ideas. He was a staunch advocate of the need for rigorous evaluation of probation practice – but an equally staunch critic of the excesses of the management ideal.</p><p>To keep his spirit alive, a group of Bill’s relatives, colleagues and friends established The Bill McWilliams Memorial Lecture. It is intended to honour the contribution he made to the probation service over a 30-year period and keep his perspectives at the forefront of probation thinking.</p>

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