Mitigating Motherhood: A Study on the Impact of Motherhood on Sentencing Decisions in England and Wales

The Howard League for Penal Reform have published the work of Shona Minson, one of the Centre’s DPhil Students, who completed her Masters degree at the University of Surrey.  Her paper won the John Sunley Prize in 2013 – a prize awarded by the Howard League to recognize outstanding Masters dissertations which offer new insights into the penal system and further the cause of penal reform

‘Mitigating Motherhood: A study on the impact of motherhood on sentencing decisions in England and Wales‘ uses analysis of sentencing transcripts and interviews with members of the judiciary to explore the current understanding and application of motherhood as mitigation, and was an exploratory study for the DPhil work which Shona is now undertaking.

Shona's paper can be found here, and downloaded as a pdf here.