Marion Vannier is a senior lecturer in criminology. Prior to joining the University of Manchester, Marion worked as a lawyer in private law firms, as a legal officer in a defence team before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and as a judge for the UNHCR within the French Asylum appeals court. Marion completed her MSc and DPhil at the University of Oxford. She also holds a joint law degree from the Universities of La Sorbonne and King’s College London, and an LLM from Georgetown University (US).

Marion is a research associate at the University of Oxford, Centre for Criminology, Border Criminologies and The Imprisonment Observatory.

Marion's research interests encompass the sociology of punishment, criminal law, and human rights. Her book, Normalising Punishment: the case of life without parole in California has been published by Oxford University Press in 2021. It explores the ties between life without parole (LWOP) and efforts to remove capital punishment. The book draws on a unique database of over 300 letters written by prisoners serving LWOP in California. Marion continues to be interested in topics relating to life imprisonment and the politics of punishment more broadly. Her other research inquiries include ageing, gender, and migration studies.

She is happy to supervise graduate and postdoctoral students working on topics that relate to prisons, punishment, and human rights.

Marion teaches the following undegraduate and postgraduate courses: Enhanced Study Skills in Criminology, Criminal Justice in Action, Understanding Punishment, Evaluating Policy and Practice, and Research Methods