Professor McNeil explores comparative penology and asks what can be learned from looking at practices, policies, systems and institutions across different geographical areas as well as historical eras. What can be done in response to critiques of current systems?

Life imprisonment is discussed. Topics include questions around what happens after release, what a sentence like this means, and how to understand the growth in use and form of life sentences.

Professor McNeill discusses the death penalty.

This lecture features University of Edinburgh Professor of Criminology Richard Sparks speaking on the historical and contemporary perspectives around prisons.

After a brief discussion of fines and financial penalties, based around the book 'The Currency of Justice' by Pat O'Malley, Professor McNeill invites a practitioner response from a social worker from Glasgow City Council to a paper he has co-authored on community sanctions.

Professor McNeill discusses sentencing with Professor Neil Hutton, former Dean of Law at the University of Strathclyde and pre-eminent scholar in the field.

Professor McNeil talks through some key recent texts in the field of punishment and penology, from David Garland's 'Culture of Control' to Louc Wacquant's 'Punishing the Poor'.

This lecture examines current theoretical developments in the sociology of punishment and demonstrates how they affect policy in relation to key areas like sentencing, criminal justice social work, imprisonment, and punishment of women.