We at HLS are sad to report the death of Professor Jacqueline Tombs, following a short illness. Jackie was a stalwart supporter of HLS and a former committee member. Her passionate support for penal change reflected her lifelong commitment to fairness, social justice and decency – qualities that were evident to all who knew her in everything she did.

Jackie was a significant figure in criminal justice policy and research throughout her career and in a range of different roles. She was formerly Head of the Central Research Unit in the then Scottish Executive, during a period when it was noted for producing imaginative and challenging policy research.  A number of highly distinguished researchers – including Lesley McAra, Susan McVie and Michele Burman – began their careers there under her mentorship.

Later on, she was successively Professor of Criminology at Stirling, and Professor of Criminology and Social Justice at Glasgow Caledonian University. She was a founding and key member of the Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice, for whom she wrote the important and insightful study A Unique Punishment: Sentencing and the Prison Population in Scotland (2004).  Few people – if indeed any other – have done so much to maintain the vital links between research-based knowledge and policy in Scotland.

Jackie never lost her radical convictions, and she was not afraid to voice her views with passion and force in any context. Yet her innate empathy and her grasp of complex situations always enabled her to see others’ points of view. That made her a unifying figure, as comfortable among senior judges as among prison abolitionists, and held in similar affection and esteem by both. 

Jackie was a vital and energizing person, fiercely loyal both to people and to causes. HLS, the worlds of criminal justice policy and criminological research in Scotland all owe her many debts. We send our greetings and condolences to her children Gael and Mark and all her other family and friends.  She will be well remembered and greatly missed.