The Role of Culture in Sentencing and Penal Decision-Making – European Seminar at CIS, 2.-3. June 2025.
How can ‘culture’ be understood in relation to sentencing and criminal justice processes? How far does the concept extend, and in what ways is it used to denote different conceptual frameworks or perspectives? How does ‘culture’ shape practice within the criminal justice system? What role does ‘culture’ play within and between legal institutions (e.g., prosecution services, defense lawyers, police, prison and probation services, parole boards, etc.) in shaping guidelines and practices in criminal justice processes? And how do innovations (e.g., technologies) and reforms interact with culture?
These and related questions are the focus of the annual European seminar of the European Society of Criminology’s network The European Group on Sentencing & Penal Decision-Making. The 2025 seminar will take place on 2–3 June at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies (CIS), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.