Sjarai Lestrade is associate professor criminal law at the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology. She serves as associate judge at the Gelderland District Court. She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Boom Strafblad and the digital platform EHRC Updates.

The overarching question driving her research is: how can criminal law evolve in a way that adequately addresses the challenges of the 21st century — such as increasing social inequality, rapid technological changes, ecological crises, and threats to democracy — without compromising human rights and fundamental principles of criminal law? She intends to explore this question using an approach she calls sustainable criminal (procedural) law: at its core is a criminal justice system that protects the needs of today’s society without jeopardizing those of future generations. In doing so, Lestrade focuses on the significance of fundamental rights and principles in criminal law and criminal procedural law; the relationship between the government, the defendant, the victim, the society, and the environment; and the interplay between international, European, and national law.