Gabrielle Watson

I am the Shaw Foundation Fellow in Law at Lincoln College, Oxford and Fellow-elect of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany. I hold an LLB (First Class) from the University of Edinburgh and MSc (Distinction), MA (Honorary), and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. I began my academic career as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law and at Christ Church, Oxford.

I am the author of the award-winning Respect and Criminal Justice, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. The book offers the first sustained analysis of ‘respect’ in criminal justice in England and Wales, where the value is elusive but of central and enduring significance. I am currently writing a second book entitled Just Words? Ethics and the Language of Criminal Justice.

My work has been generously funded by major grants from the Leverhulme Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the John Fell OUP Research Fund. I have given invited talks to legal and interdisciplinary audiences, including at the Assize Seminar in Cutting-Edge Criminal Law: a unique collaboration between the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University College London, and the Criminal Bar Association. I have held Visiting Fellowships in Law at the Cambridge Centre for Criminal Justice (2019, 2021) and at Downing College, Cambridge (2021). 

I provide background briefings to the media as part of the University of Oxford's Find an Expert scheme and, in 2022, I was appointed Adviser to the Sentencing Academy, a London-based institute dedicated to developing expert and public understanding of sentencing in England and Wales.

Book                          

Respect and Criminal Justice (2020). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press

Reviewed in Criminal Law and Philosophy, the Modern Law Review, and Criminology & Criminal Justice

Edited collection

Sentencing, Public Opinion, and Criminal Justice: Essays in Honour of Julian V Roberts (with Marie Manikis). Under contract with Oxford University Press

Journal articles

‘Ethics at Sentencing, Guilty Pleas, and the Case for Respect’ (2021) 2 Sentencing News 6

‘Reducing Female Admissions to Custody: Exploring the Options at Sentencing’ (2017) Criminology & Criminal Justice 17(5) 546 (with Julian V Roberts)

Book chapters

'Sentencing Ethically' in Marie Manikis and Gabrielle Watson (eds) Sentencing, Public Opinion, and Criminal Justice: Essays in Honour of Julian V Roberts. Under contract with Oxford University Press

'Editors’ Introduction' in Marie Manikis and Gabrielle Watson (eds) Sentencing, Public Opinion, and Criminal Justice: Essays in Honour of Julian V Roberts. Under contract with Oxford University Press

‘The Guilty Plea and Self-Respect’ in Julian V Roberts and Jesper Ryberg (eds) Sentencing the Self-Convicted: The Ethics of Pleading Guilty (2023) Oxford: Hart Bloomsbury Publishing

Book reviews

Review of Antje du Bois-Pedain and Anthony E Bottoms (eds) Penal Censure: Engagements Within and Beyond Desert Theory (2022) Criminal Law and Philosophy 16(2) 417

Review of Michael J Coyle, Talking Criminal Justice: Language and the Just Society (2015) Theoretical Criminology 19(3) 445

Reports

Sentencing Historic Offenders. Issues Paper (2022). London: Sentencing Academy

Respect and Legitimacy at Sentencing. Issues Paper (2021). London: Sentencing Academy

Ageing Prisoners. Review of the International Literature commissioned by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland (2016). Edinburgh: HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland       

Consultation response

Response to Scottish Sentencing Council, Public Consultation on Draft Guideline for Driving Offences (with Julian V Roberts and Jonathan Bild on behalf of the Sentencing Academy) (2022). Edinburgh: Scottish Sentencing Council

Working papers

'Sentencing Racial, Ethnic, and Indigenous Minorities: Exploring Diverse Responses to a Universal Problem' (2023) commissioned by Crime and Justice (with Julian V Roberts and Rhys Hester)

Personal Mitigation at Sentencing. Issues Paper (2023) commissioned by the Sentencing Academy

'A Respect Standard for Sentencing' in preparation for The Political Turn(s) in Criminal Law Theory workshop, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (2023)