Book Review: Policing the lottery of birth

trap, alluring as it clearly is. Vannier’s account is a reminder that the best criminological research can add insight and new understanding that allows us to reframe the debates around penal policy. And here, what she does is to show us that the problem of LWOP is not merely a problem of legislation, or of rising numbers of people serving LWOP sentences (though of course it is those things too), it is about trying to reduce the human suffering inside our prison systems. We should not lose sight of those who are most directly impacted by LWOP. Rather than pick over the rationales behind either LWOP or execution, what we require then is a more fundamental, encompassing and complicated debate: “how should we, as members of different societies, punish those who commit the most serious crimes?’ (p.166). Dr Louise Brangan is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Criminology at the University of Strathclyde, UK. Louise.Brangan@strath.ac.uk