Book Launch - Alan Norrie, Rethinking Criminal Justice Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology
When: Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Where: Room 313, Third Floor, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS
Please join us on Wednesday 19th November in Room 313 at QMUL Laws, Mile End, at 6 pm for a panel discussion, Q&A & drinks celebrating Professor Alan Norrie’s new book Rethinking Criminal Justice: Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology (CUP).
About the Book:
For 200 years, the penal equation 'crime plus blame equals punishment' has meant prison crises, a permanent crime problem, violent and damaged lives. The retributive theory of punishment supports this; fully developed, it could transform it. A moral psychology of violation distinguishes primitive and mature retributivism, explaining punishment's necessary failure and guilt, forgiveness and reconciliation's power. 'Atonement' means both punitive 'payback' and being 'at one' again with self and others. Reconciliation for offender, victim and society leads to punishment's deep, tendential abolition. Intellectually innovative and bold, Alan Norrie's mature retributivism is rooted in human ontology, in the metaphysical animal that thinks and loves. Speaking to law, philosophy, criminology and criminal justice, his moral psychology considers victims who victimise, grief at violation, denial and mourning and the loving prison. Exploring ethics, psychoanalysis, social theory, testimony and film, his psychologically developed moral philosophy challenges basic assumptions about punishment and the penal equation.
The Panel:
Professor Alan Norrie was Edmund-Davies Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice at King's College London (1997-2009) and held the Drapers' Chair in Law at Queen Mary and Westfield College (1994-7). He returned to Warwick in 2009. Alan is interested in the critical and historical analysis of criminal law and in its ethical and doctrinal problems, and in ideas of guilt, forgiveness and justice. He is author of several books and has recently published Rethinking Criminal Justice: Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology (Cambridge University Press).
Dr Craig Reeves is Senior Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck, University of London. He works on issues in legal, moral and social philosophy. His specialisms include the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis and critical realism. He has published widely on topics such as judgment, freedom, responsibility, punishment, the ethics of work, the critique of digital capitalism, and the nature of critical theory.
Dr Kate Leader is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. Kate is an interdisciplinary scholar with a doctorate in law from LSE and a doctorate in Performance Studies from the University of Sydney. Kate is interested in the intersections between criminal law and criminal justice and conducts empirical research into the everyday experiences of participants in the criminal process.