The annual John Ll J Edwards Memorial Lecture honours and celebrates the late John Ll J Edwards, professor at the Faculty of Law and founder of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies (CrimSL). Edwards was an English-trained legal scholar who taught at Dalhousie University before joining U of T Law.  He established the Centre for Criminology as a world-renowned multidisciplinary research centre in 1963, which has grown to offer undergraduate, master's and PhD programs in criminology and socio-legal studies. 


The 25th Annual John LI J. Edwards Memorial Lecture

for 2023/2024 has been provisionally set for

2 November

Professor Mary Bosworth

Centre for Criminology at Oxford University, Faculty of Law

Past editor of Theoretical Criminology

The 60th anniversary celebration of CrimSL will follow this event

This event is presented by the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies and co-sponsored by Woodsworth College and the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

 

Past Lectures

  • Professor Dorothy E. Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, "Family Policing and the Carceral Web: A Call for Abolition" (19 January 2023)
  • Professor Prabha Kotiswaran, King’s College London, "The Sexual Politics of Anti-Trafficking Discourse" PDF (November 28, 2019)
  • Senator Murray Sinclair, "The Accidental Jurist: Thoughts on a life in the law" (November 19th, 2018)
  • Professor Jonathan Simon, Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Center of the Study of Law & Society at UC Berkeley, "THE ARCS OF MASS INCARCERATION: Four Turning Points in the History of US Penality and their Legacy for the Contemporary Penal State" (Oct. 26, 2017)
  • Professor Marie Gottschalk (Political Science Department,  University of Pennsylvania), "Are we there yet? The future of penal reform and the carceral state in the US." (April 8th, 2016)
  • The Honourable Professor Irwin Cotler, Former Minister of Justice & Attorney General of Canada, "“The Omnibus Criminal [In] Justice Agenda: Whither Parliament, the Courts and the Charter” (March 26, 2015)
  • Anthony Doob, Emeritus Professor, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, “Losing Our Balance: Old and New Directions in Canadian Criminal Justice Policy” (February 6, 2014)
  • The Hon. Ian Binnie, with an ntroduction by the Hon. Roy McMurtry (November 20, 2012)
  • Professor Federico Varese, Oxford University: "Current Challenges in the Study of Organized Crime" (January 17, 2011)
  • Natalie Zemon Davis, Professor emerita of History at Princeton University, Adjunct Professor of History and Professor of Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, "Judges, Masters, Diviners: Slaves’ Experience of Criminal Justice in Colonial Suriname" (January 25, 2010)
  • Professor Loïc Wacquant, University of California at Berkeley and the Centre de Sociologie Européenne, Paris, "Reconstructing the Penal State"
  • Professor Susan Silbey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "Governing Green Laboratories: Trust and Surveillance in the Cultures of Science". 
  • Prof. Richard V. Ericson, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto: "Criminalization and the Politics of Uncertainty." 
  • Professor Martin Friedland, University Professor Emeritus of Law and Criminology, University of Toronto: "Criminal Justice in Canada Revisited"
  • Professor David Garland, New York University: "The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society"
  • Professor James Fyfe, Crime and Justice Research Institute, Temple University: "Police Officers Involved in Career-Ending Misconduct"
  • Professor John Beattie, University of Toronto: "The Problem of Urban Crime: London 1660-1750."
  • Professor Kent Roach, University of Saskatchewan: "The Attorney-General and the Charter"