Deserved Criminal Sentences: An Overview

Description

This book provides an accessible and systematic restatement of the desert model for criminal sentencing by one of its leading academic exponents. The desert model emphasises the degree of seriousness of the offender’s crime in deciding the severity of his punishment, and has become increasingly influential in recent penal practice and scholarly debate. It explains why sentences should be based principally on crime-seriousness, and addresses, among other topics, how a desert-based penalty scheme can be constructed; how to gauge punishments’ seriousness and penalties’ severity; what weight should be given to an offender’s previous convictions; how non-custodial sentences should be scaled; and what leeway there might be for taking other factors into account, such as an offender’s need for treatment. This volume will be of interest to all those working in penal theory and practice, criminal sentencing and the criminal law more generally. Preface Acknowledgements Contents 1 Introduction: The Emergence of
the Proportionate Sentence 1.1 The Origins of the Desert Model 1.2 Proportionality-Based Sentencing: The Example of Sweden"s Sentencing Scheme 1.3 Attractions of the Proportionate Sentence 1.4 Prevention-based Sentencing as a Workable Alternative? 1.5 Ethical Presuppositions of the Desert Rationale 1.6 Topics Addressed in this Volume 2 Sentence Proportionality Sketched Briefly 2.1 Censure and Penal Desert 2.2 The Rationale for Proportionality 2.3 Proportionality as "Limiting" or "Determining"? 2.4 Gauging Crimes" Seriousness and Punishments" Severity 2.5 Role of Previous Criminal Convictions 2.6 Inclusion of Crime-control Aims? 2.7 Desert and Increased Penal Severity? 3 Why Should the Criminal Sanction Exist? 3.1 Varieties of Desert Theories 3.2 Censure-Based Justifications for Punishment 3.3 Why the Censure in Punishment? 3.4 Why the Hard Treatment in Punishment? 3.5 The Relation between the Two Elements 4 Why Punish Proportionately? 4.1 Beccaria and Bentham"s Deterrence Argument 4.2 Positive General Prevention: The Inhibition-reinforcement Argument 4.3 The Argument from Censure 4.4 The Censure Argument Stated More Fully 5 Ordinal and Cardinal Proportionality 5.1 Ordinal Proportionality 5.2 The Sub-requirements of Ordinal Proportionality: Parity and Rank-ordering 5.3 How Much Does Ordinal Proportionality Constrain Reliance on Crime-prevention Concerns? 5.4 Cardinal Magnitude and the Fixing of the Penalty System"s Anchoring Points 5.5 How Much Guidance Regarding Anchoring of the Penalty Structure? 6 Seriousness, Severity and the Living-standard 6.1 Gauging Crimes" Seriousness 6.2 Gauging Punishments" Severity 7 The Role of\u2009Previous Convictions 7.1 Explanations Directed to the Present Act 7.2 Explanations Directed to the Criminal Career 7.3 An Alternative Account: "Tolerance" and the Prior Record 7.4 Multiple Previous Offending? 7.5 The Institutional and Social Context 7.6 An Illustration: Sweden"s Treatment of ReOffending 7.7 Seriousness and Number of Previous Convictions 8 Proportionate Non-custodial Sanctions 8.1 Basic Elements of the Model 8.2 Interchanges: Equivalent Penal Bite 8.3 Back-up Sanctions for Breach of Conditions 9 A "Modified" Desert Model? 9.1 Exceptional Departures 9.2 "Range Models" 10 The Politics of
the Desert Model 10.1 The Desert Model"s Political Pedigree 10.2 Limiting Severity: Desert vs Penal Utilitarianism 10.3 Proportionality and Increased Severity? 10.4 "Law and Order" Strategies 10.5 Arguments about "Underlying Ills" 10.6 The "Vacuousness" Argument 11 Proportionate Sentences for Juveniles 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Culpability 11.3 Punitive Bite 11.4 A Special "Tolerance" for Juveniles? Appendix The Desert Model"s Evolution-A Brief
Chronology Bibliography Index