" 'The death of one man is a tragedy,' Josef Stalin is said to have mused. 'The deaths of a million is a statistic.' A.T. Williams's prize winning debut, A Very British Killing, was a passionately written investigation into the death of a single man – Baha Mousa, an innocent Iraqi hotel receptionist killed by British soldiers in Basra in 2003. This, his second book, is a study in myriad deaths – the Nazi perpetration of genocide – and a prolonged meditation on Stalin's idea that the human mind cannot comprehend mass murder... His theme is the imperfect efforts made by the Allied military authorities... to bring the criminals responsible for these horrors to justice." (Daily Telegraph)

"This is a fine book that does a great job of debunking one of the most enduring myths in history." (History of War)

"Splendid book... Much more than a historical narrative and assessment… This is a superb book which offers no easy answers but invites the reader to join its author on a grim odyssey." (History Today)

"Earnest, unsettling book... Williams is a thoughtful, lucid writer, with a lawyer’s appetite for detail... A Passing Fury is heartfelt, moving and often powerfully written." (Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times)

"Haunting, sensitive and thoughtful study." (Nigel Jones, Daily Telegraph)

"Williams has put together an original polemic against our assumptions about these trials, including those at Nuremberg. (David Herman, New Statesman)

"... gripping and original ..." (The Catholic Herald)

"... skilfully reveals a chaotic world in which war crimes investigation teams... were left to do their best in extremely trying circumstances." (Scotland on Sunday)

Jackie Hodgson and Laurène Soubise have a new forthcoming publication in 45 Crime and Justice (ed. Michael Tonry), Sentencing Policies and Practices in Western Countries:Comparative and Cross-National Perspectives, on 'Understanding the Sentencing Process in France'.

French sentencing is characterized by broad judicial discretion and an ethos of individualized justice that is adapted to the rehabilitation of the offender. The current approach aims to prevent recidivism through rehabilitation and so protect the interests of society as well as reintegrating the offender as reformed citizen. In opposition to this approach is that of the political right, characterized by the recent Sarkozy regime, which favors deterrence through harsher penalties, minimum prison sentences and increased incarceration, including after the sentence has been served in the case of offenders considered dangerous. This article looks at the practice as well as the theory of French sentencing and locates the sentencing process (for it is a process, not a single event) within the broader context of French inquisitorially rooted criminal procedure. It argues that the central part played by the prosecutor in criminal cases (including in case disposition through alternative sanctions), her role in recommending a sentence to the court and the court’s invariable decision to follow this suggestion, together with the unitary mature of the French judicial profession, means that despite the broad discretion afforded the sentencing judge, there is a remarkable degree of consistency in the penalties imposed. It examines the range of penalties available and considers the most recent addition put forward by the Consensus Commission and legislated in 2014, the contrainte pénale, suggesting that this is unlikely to have a great impact without the investment of resources in the probation service and a change in the judicial culture which still favors simple sentencing options, including imprisonment, to the array of alternative options now in place.

Jackie Hodgson presented a paper at UCLA in January at the conference ‘Prosecutors and Democracy’ organised by David Slansky and Maximo Langer. My paper was 'Politics, democracy and the nature of the prosecutor as professional in England and Wales and France’. To find out more click here

Jackie Hodgson presented a paper at UCLA in January at the conference ‘Prosecutors and Democracy’ organised by David Slansky and Maximo Langer. Her paper was 'Politics, democracy and the nature of the prosecutor as professional in England and Wales and France’. To read more click here .

• Senior Expert working on Impact Assessment on amendments to Directive on provisional Legal Aid (January - May 2016)

Jackie also lends her expertise to a study commissioned by the European Parliament. In response to the proposal by the European Commission for a Directive on Legal Aid, the European Parliament's Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs proposed several amendments. The study aims at evaluating those substantive amendments to the Legal Aid proposal. The objective of the impact assessment is to assess the economic costs and benefits of those amendments, but also their social impacts and impacts on fundamental rights. To read on click here

On 3rd March 2016, Criminal Justice Centre Director Professor Jackie Hodgson ran a training workshop for the Greater Manchester Police on safeguards for young suspects during police interrogation. Over 70 police officers of varying experience and specialization attended the workshop in Manchester. To read on click here.

The Annual Research Report showcases the varity and excellence of the law school's research activities, and the strength of the School as a research community.

Please see below for the report

Warwick Law school Annual Research Report 2015

The prison pen pal scheme ‘Prisoners’ Penfriends’ has an important role to play in helping to rehabilitate convicted offenders, new research from the University of Warwick has found.

The findings are revealed in a report from the Law School’s Criminal Justice Centre, which is being presented at the House of Lords on Thursday (25 June).

Professor Jacqueline Hodgson and PhD student Juliet Horne focused their research on the work of the small charity Prisoners’ Penfriends, which puts offenders in touch with trained volunteers.

The CJC is delighted to have been awarded funding by the ESRC to host an event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science on Saturday 14 November 2015.

The CJC multi-format event aims to bring together different perspectives on the experience of punishment, in order to raise awareness of, promote social science research on and generate debate on prisoner wellbeing and its consequences to criminal justice policy and practice. The full-day event will encourage an interactive open debate between academics and non-academics through drawing on a range of perspectives on the topic, from that of those responsible for formulating and implementing prison policy, and that of social scientists researching punishment and criminal justice, to that of those with first-hand, lived experiences of punishment within prisons. Interactive sessions will include: screening and discussion of the film ‘Herman’s House’ (a movie about the communication between an architect and a life prisoner in the US); a workshop run by the Empty Cages Collective about the conditions and experience of imprisonment in England and Wales; and an exhibition of prisoners’ creative self-expression (letters, photography, paintings, etc.) followed by discussion.

Professors Jackie Hodgson and Roger Leng have been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), and will be conducting a research study into“Securing a fair trial through excluding evidence? A comparative perspective” . The project runs from 2015-2017 and is a collaboration between the criminal Justice Centre at Warwick and scholars from Switzerland, Germany, China, Taiwan and Singapore.

This volume brings together a broad range of scholars working within a variety of procedural traditions in Europe, North America and China. The first section contains three papers that address the use of discretion during the investigation and prosecution stage of criminal proceedings; the second section deals with negotiated justice and various types of plea agreements in Spain, China and Italy.In the third section, different approaches to the exclusion of evidence are discussed, relating to Switzerland, Germany and a potential EU approach. The fourth section discusses discretion in relation to the death penalty in the US. At the heart of these issues is the problem of reconciling prosecutorial and judicial discretion with the principle of legality. The need to avoid arbitrary decisions is key,but the authors come to differing conclusions as to the impact and value of judicial discretion at different stages of the process and in different jurisdictions.

Dr Ana Aliverti has been awarded the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (BARSEA).

The BARSEA aims at providing an opportunity for early career researchers who have established their academic credentials as leaders in their field to enhance their skills and career development through playing a leading role in engaging others through the organisation of engagement events.