Background
Walker was born in Tianjin China (formerly Tientsin), on 6 August 1917, as a result of his father"s posting there as British vice-consul.
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Nigel Walker
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended Edinburgh Academy being awarded Dux in 1935. During his time the Scottish Office he wrote a Doctor of Philosophy thesis on The Logical Status of the Freudian Unconscious and a book A Short History of Psychotherapy.
Career
After school, he read classics at Christ Church, Oxford, and became a civil servant. During World World War II, he served with the Queen"s Own Cameron Highlanders and Lovat Scouts, being shot on active service in Italy. In 1979, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
He then took up one-year research fellowship for civil servants in Nuffield College, Oxford, from which research he published Morale in the Civil Service (1961).
He published a first volume of a history of the insanity defence, Crime and Insanity in England (1968), for which he was awarded Doctor of Letters by Oxford University, and honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
His student textbook Crime and Punishment in Britain (1965) was also influential. Between 1973 and 1984 he was Wolfson Professor of Criminology, and a Fellow of King"s College, Cambridge.
His work challenged many accepted beliefs in the study of criminology, and he had an interest in the rehabilitation of offenders, writing Sentencing in a Rational Society (1969). He retired in 1984, but continued to teach and write, notably Why Punish? (1991) and Dangerous People (1996).
He wrote "in private I am as vindictive as any reader of The Daily Telegraph when some particularly evil offender is brought to justice, I simply question whether it is useful or morally justifiable to think in terms of desert rather than deterrence, correction or prevention when sentencing him."
During his teaching career, he spent time at Yale where his students included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, then as yet unmarried.
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Born
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Died
September 13, 2014 (aged 97)