Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit

Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit has focused his research on law reform and penology in South Africa as well as Europe and the USA. He obtained his BA in Law and LLB at Stellenbosch University and completed his PhD Law at the University of Edinburgh. He spent his career in academia as Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand; Professor in Comparative and International Penal Law at the University of Nottingham; and Professor of Criminology and, currently, Emeritus Professor at the University. Professor van Zyl Smit’s books include Life Imprisonment: A global human rights analysis which received the Outstanding Book of the Year awards from both the European Society of Criminology and the Division of International Criminology of the American Society of Criminology. He is co-editor of Punishment and Society and the author of more than 140 academic articles, books and book chapters. He largely drafted South Africa’s Correctional Services Act, 111 of 1998 and has held Fellowships at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, where he also served as a member of its Scientific Council.