Marguerite Schinkel talks about important questions. Can imprisonment ever be transformational? What is it like being imprisoned during a pandemic?

Marguerite Schinkel is a criminologist at the University of Glasgow and the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. Her research has focused on the meaning of sentences for those who serve them, focusing on long-term and persistent short-term prison sentences. She is also involved in another project funded by Community Justice Scotland, along with two colleagues, Cyrus Tata and Beth Weaver at Strathclyde University. The Meaning of Sentences is a pilot project which looks at the meanings given to the sentence imposed by the different actors in the courtroom. What meaning does the judge want to communicate, what meaning does the person sentenced perceive and what role does the defence lawyer play in these processes of meaning making?

 

More recently she has explored the impact of Covid-19 and the lockdown on penal experiences in Scotland and she is hoping to explore local ways out of harm in her next project. She is the co-founder of the Coalition Against Punishment, which aims to disrupt the punishment system in Scotland: //capscotland.com/