A number of jurisdictions, including England and Wales after their adoption of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act, require that sentences be `proportionate' to the severity of the crime. This book, written by the leading architect of `just deserts' sentencing theory, discusses how sentences may be scaled proportionately to the gravity of the crime. Topics dealt with include how the idea of a penal censure justifies proportionate sentences; how a penalty scale should be `anchored' to reduce overall punishment levels; how non-custodial (...) penalties should be graded and used; and how political pressures impinge on sentencing policies. (shrink)

The principle that a sentence should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence remains at the centre of penal practice and scholarly debate. This volume explores highly topical aspects of proportionality theory that require examination and further analysis. von Hirsch and Ashworth explore the relevance of the principle of proportionality to the sentencing of young offenders, the possible reasons for departing from the principle when sentencing dangerous offenders, and the application of the principle to socially deprived offenders. They examine (...) the claim that the principle tends to be associated with greater severity in sentencing, and explore the relevance of penance and of restorative justice to proportionality theory. Their examination of arguments and counter-arguments culminates in a re-statement of the main criteria for proportionate sentencing.The authors are well known for their previous writings on proportionality theory, and this volume broadens the theory to deal with important contemporary issues in crime and punishment. (shrink)

This paper explores the Offence Principle. It discusses whether two constraints, additional to the criteria stated in conventional analysis, ought to be met before the Offense Principle can be satisfied: (i) that offensive conduct must be a wrong, and (ii) that the conduct must also lead to harm. The nature of the Harm Principle, and its relationship to the Offense Principle, are also considered. The paper suggests that, even if all cases in which offense should be criminalized also involve harm, (...) nonetheless there may be good reasons to retain a separate Offense Principle. (shrink)

Introduction: the emergence of the proportionate sentence -- Sentence proportionality sketched briefly -- Why should the criminal sanction exist? -- Why punish proportionately? -- Ordinal and cardinal proportionality -- Seriousness, severity and the living-standard -- The role of previous convictions -- Proportionate non-custodial sanctions -- A "modified" desert model? -- The politics of the desert model -- Proportionate sentences for juveniles -- Appendix: the desert model's evolution : a brief chronology.

Many of the most serious crimes that fall within the justificatory scope of the harm principle do so constitutively. They do so in the sense that the harm that the crime is designed to prevent is a...

This article opens with the consequentialist–deontologist debate, with the former concerned about the relevance of punitive measures against their crime reducing potentials, while the latter highlights punishment as censure of wrongful acts and the proportion of the punishment to the degree of crime. The article briefly discusses the empirical research on the impact of penal sanctions and focuses on three main kinds of empirical research into possible general deterrent effects—namely, association studies, quasi-experimental studies, and contextual and perceptual studies. It addresses (...) the methodological issues involved in deterrence research and summarizes the results precisely. This article also discusses reductivism in the view of the possibility that penal sanctions could influence the offender's will. The results suggest that crime preventive aims can justify sentencing policies only to a limited degree, at least for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

The decline of the rehabilitative ethos in sentencing theory in the post_1960's is a story that has been told often , and need not be rehearsed here. Penal treatment programs, once tested for their effectiveness, showed scant success _ or at most, succeeded only in limited categories of cases. Doubts grew also about the fairness of making the severity of a person's sentence depend upon his responsiveness to treatment. As penal rehabilitation diminished in influence, the key question for penologists and (...) reformers became: what conception of sentencing should follow it? My article, as well as Michael Tonry's and John Donahue's in the present volume, is devoted to this question, of the choice of sentencing rationale.I will focus, particularly, on a sentencing theory that became influential in the late 1970's and 1980's in this country and western Europe , and continues to have considerable influence today : namely, the proportionalist or 'desert' model for sentencing. I shall address briefly what this theory's main tenets are and how it differs from traditional retributivism; what has made it attractive to liberal criminologists and penal reformers during the last three decades; and whether and to what degree it has continued value and usefulness for the future. (shrink)

A. W. Brian Simpson, Cannibalism and the Common Law Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

. Selective incapacitation reexamined: The national academy of sciences' report on criminal careers and “career criminals”. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 19-35.

The decline of the rehabilitative ethos in sentencing theory in the post_1960's is a story that has been told often, and need not be rehearsed here. Penal treatment programs, once tested for their effectiveness, showed scant success _ or at most, succeeded only in limited categories of cases. Doubts grew also about the fairness of making the severity of a person's sentence depend upon his responsiveness to treatment. As penal rehabilitation diminished in influence, the key question for penologists and reformers (...) became: what conception of sentencing should follow it? My article, as well as Michael Tonry's and John Donahue's in the present volume, is devoted to this question, of the choice of sentencing rationale.I will focus, particularly, on a sentencing theory that became influential in the late 1970's and 1980's in this country and western Europe, and continues to have considerable influence today : namely, the proportionalist or 'desert' model for sentencing. I shall address briefly what this theory's main tenets are and how it differs from traditional retributivism; what has made it attractive to liberal criminologists and penal reformers during the last three decades; and whether and to what degree it has continued value and usefulness for the future. (shrink)