Projects about Courts and Sentencing

The Scottish Prisons Commission: Ten Years On

In July 2008 The Scottish Prisons Commission (also known as the McLeish Commission) published its report Scotland’s Choice. This report culminated an eight month investigation of how Scotland uses prison and the range of factors that drive this, from inequality in society to arrest and sentencing practices. The report contained 23 recommendations covering an almost unprecedented range of...

Social Enquiry and Sentencing in the Sheriff Courts

This ESRC funded research project was a collaboration led by Simon Halliday, Neil Hutton and Cyrus Tata at the University of Strathclyde. The study used ethnographic methods to study the production of social enquiry (or pre-sentence) reports and their use by sentencers. A summary report of the project’s findings can be found in project documents, along with some related recent...