Brenda McWilliams – A Huge Thank You

The June 2025 issue of the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice is the final issue to have been put together by Brenda McWilliams, who is retiring from her post as Production Editor.

Brenda began working for the Journal in the late 1970s, under the Editorship of Professor Anthony Bottoms. She has worked on the Journal ever since, a period of close to half a century.

During that period, several Editors-in-Chief have benefitted from Brenda’s tireless, patient and careful oversight of all aspects of the Journal, of whom I am but the latest. For the previous nine years, I have been the welcome and grateful beneficiary of that support. Working with Brenda on the Journal has made the role of Editor just so much easier, more collegial and enjoyable than it might otherwise have been, and the Journal a whole lot better than it would have been without her input. If I was ever lagging, slow to get to a paper that needed my attention, Brenda would simply call me.

There are also, across the world, countless authors and reviewers whose engagement with the Howard Journal has been smoothed by Brenda’s patient attention, and whose work has been improved by her forensic copy-editing and proof-reading skills. Authors would often report to me or Brenda – with increasing surprise as the world of journal publishing morphed into a new shape – how much they had appreciated her encouragement and care.

So, the Howard Journal, and the wider field of criminology, owes Brenda McWilliams a significant debt of gratitude. The Journal will go on, finding new ways of working and new people to cover the tasks that Brenda has for so long and so expertly performed. But we will do so with enormous thanks for the contribution Brenda has made over close to 50 years, and in the knowledge that things will never be quite the same again.

Thank you, Brenda.

Ian Loader
Editor-in-Chief
Howard Journal of Crime and Justice

Comments

• Mandie Young says:

  3 Jun 2025 at 9:10 pm

  Brenda was a very important friend to my mother, Pam Paige, whom she met whilst during her tenure at the Institute of criminology in Cambridge. She became a very personal friend as well as a work colleague.

  My association she became a very personal friend to me and to my family. I will miss her terribly: the work that she undertook for the Howard Journal was personal unprofessional and was an integral part of a professional life. I’ll miss her greatly as a personal friend, but also as a professional colleague.

  Reply