Miranda Boone is Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology.

More information about Miranda Boone

Miranda Boone was appointed Professor of Criminology and Comparative Criminology at Leiden University on 15 May 2017. Before that, she was professor by special appointment of penal law and penology at the University of Groningen (2011-2017) and senior lecturer in criminal and criminal procedure law at Utrecht University (2003-2017). Together with Marloes van Noorloos, she coordinates the research programme Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, Accountability and Effectivity. She is also coordinator of an interdisciplinary research project on conflict-solving justice in the context of the national Law sector plan in the Netherlands.

Miranda Boone is a criminologist and criminal law lawyer who conducts research at the interface of criminology and criminal law. Her research focuses mainly on sentencing and enforcement. She is qualified in developing, executing and leading international comparative research projects in the field of criminal justice. In particular, she investigates the decision-making processes in the application and enforcement of sanctions from both a social science and normative perspective. She conducted research for the European Commission, NWO, the WODC, the probation service and Police & Science. Her inaugural lecture at Leiden University was about supervision by the probation service of suspects and convicts in society. She edited a textbook on the relationship between criminology and criminal law (Boone and Brants 2020, 3rd edition), and conducted a literature study into the living environment in penitentiary institutions (Boone, Althoff, Koenraadt 2016). Together with Niamh Maguire, she edited a volume on conversion procedures in case of violation of the conditions of supervision measures, which was published by Routledge in 2018. In 2021 she received a grant from NWO to coordinate a five-year research project into differences in detention populations between Belgium and the Netherlands.

Phd students

• Mieke Kox: Illegally residing migrants’ understandings of the Dutch immigration system (expected PhD defence date spring 2023) 
• Jill van Rijt, Normalisation in prison: a comparative study of normalization in Dutch and Norwegian prisons. External PhD candidate
• Hester de Boer, Explaining differences in prison populations: the Netherlands versus Belgium. The Netherlands (expected promotion date autumn 2025)
• Olivier Nuyts, Explaining differences in prison populations: the Netherlands versus Belgium. Belgium (expected PhD defence date autumn  2025)
• Vera Oosterhuis: Continuïteit van Forensische Zorg (expected PhD defence date spring 2026)

Publications