The Sentencing Academy is delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s thesis prize is Lewis Bocking for his dissertation entitled ‘Using the Sentencing Guidelines: How Criminal Law Practitioners Use Steps 1 and 2 to Achieve Consistent and Proportionate Sentences in a Retributive Framework’.
Many aspects of Lewis’ work impressed the judges. The insightful qualitative analysis complemented and built upon existing quantitative studies. It shed new light on an area of practical, applied relevance to contemporary sentencing in England and Wales. Arguments were presented in a confident and fair way throughout.
Other work submitted demonstrated the vibrancy and quality of sentencing research undertaken at Masters’ level. Topics as varied as racial disparity in sentencing outcomes, and the case for a presumption against short custodial sentences in England and Wales were considered.
The judging panel comprised Gavin Dingwall (Senior Research Fellow, Sentencing Academy and Visiting Researcher at King’s College London), Tim Hillier (Head of the School of Law, De Montfort University) and Dr Carly Lightowlers (Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Liverpool).
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