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40 How. J. Crim. Just. 1 (2001)

handle is hein.journals/hjcj40 and id is 1 raw text is: The Howard Journal Vol 40 No 1. Feb 2001 ISSN 0265-5527, pp. 1-2 Editorial Leslie T. Wilkins - a tribute Leslie Wilkins, one of the editors of the Howard Journal of CriminalJustice for a decade, died on 8 May 2000. Les first became an editor in May 1987,jointly with Ken Pease and then with Nigel Fielding, and continued until retiring from the editorship in 1998. After his retirement he remained an active assessor of articles submitted to the journal until about a year before his death. Les's involvement with the journal came at a time when the journal was consolidating its establishment as a credible academic journal, and the task of providing material which would appeal to the wide and varied reader- ship of the journal is a complex balancing act in itself. During his time as editor Les helped to continue the improvement in the standard of the contents of the journal as well as providing general guidance in a new phase of its development. Articles containing complex or sophisticated data analy- ses were his specialty, but he also had strong views about the nature of the debate in criminology and criminal justice more generally. Readers wishing to know more of Les's life and work should see the obit- uaries published, in The Times on 2June, The Independent on 12 May, and The Guardian on 3July, all of which recount a long and distinguished career. Les was involved with the early developments of operational research in World War II and from that time on he believed that evidence was a better guide to policy and practice than were authority or conviction; a belief which led him into many conflicts with those in authority. His expertise in statistics took him into leading an Air Ministry team, specialising in investigations which had long-term effects on aircraft safety. His pioneering criminologi- cal work with Herman Mannheim using predictions about the recidivism of borstal boys helped to challenge the Prison Commission's certainty that borstal worked. Until recently, this was the only report in the Home Office Research Studies series to carry a disclaimer - the others were all regarded as statements of Home Office policy. From the mid-1950s he was deputy director of the then newly established Home Office Research Unit where he shaped its programme of research as well as the style of research leading to evidence-based government policy. After quitting the Home Office in the 1960s, following being accused of leaking evidence of internal disagreements over drugs policy, he moved eventually to the United States and an academic career, first in the Univer- sity of California at Berkeley and later in the State University of New York (Albany). He was influential in the development of US Federal parole policy, which succeeded in separating the facts of cases from the vagaries of judicial and parole board decisions. Les's work on sentencing led to the 1 V Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

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