Sentencing And Criminal Justice

Andrew Ashworth expertly examines the key issues in English sentencing policy and practice including the mechanisms for producing sentencing guidelines. He considers the most high-profile stages in the criminal justice process such as the Court of Appeal's approach to the custody threshold, the framework for the sentencing of young offenders and the abiding problems of previous convictions in sentencing. Taking into account the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 and the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, the book's inter-disciplinary approach places the legislation and guidelines on sentencing in the context of criminological research, statistical trends and theories of punishment. By examining the law in relation to elements of the wider criminal justice system, including the prison and probation services, students gain a rounded perspective on the relevant principles and problems of sentencing and criminal justice.

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. The volume will be of interest to all those working in penal theory and practice, criminal sentencing and the criminal law more generally.

This title presents a fully developed punishment theory which incorporates both utilitarian and retributive sentencing purposes. The author describes and defends a hybrid sentencing model that integrates theory and practice - blending and balancing both the competing principles of retribution and rehabilitation and the procedural concern of weighing rules against discretion.

This revised and updated new edition focuses on major developments in sentencing law, practice and theory. Sentencing in England and Wales is now dominated by Sentencing Council guidelines, and scrutiny of those guidelines is central to this book. Issues of principle are identified and discussed, to include the constitutional position of the Sentencing Council; the meaning of, and challenges to, proportionality; and the sentencing of BAME offenders and women offenders. The book welcomes the new Sentencing Code, introduced as the Sentencing Act 2020, and critically examines the government's plans for sentencing reform, set out in the 2020 White Paper A Smarter Approach to Sentencing. Throughout the book, sentencing is explored in its wider criminal justice context – making it essential reading for courses on sentencing, criminal justice and criminal law.

Over the past forty years, the criminal justice system in the United States has engaged in a very expensive policy failure, attempting to punish its way to public safety, with dismal results. So-called "tough on crime" policies have not only failed to effectively reduce crime, recidivism, and victimization but also created an incredibly inefficient system that routinely fails the public, taxpayers, crime victims, criminal offenders, their families, and their communities. Strategies that focus on behavior change are much more productive and cost effective for reducing crime than punishment, and in this book, William R. Kelly discusses the policy, process, and funding innovations and priorities that the United States needs to effectively reduce crime, recidivism, victimization, and cost. He recommends proactive, evidence-based interventions to address criminogenic behavior; collaborative decision making from a variety of professions and disciplines; and a focus on innovative alternatives to incarceration, such as problem-solving courts and probation. Students, professionals, and policy makers alike will find in this comprehensive text a bracing discussion of how our criminal justice system became broken and the best strategies by which to fix it.

Crimes and Punishments: Entering the Mind of a Sentencing Judge provides a cross-section of different crimes for which Judge Frederic Block sentenced a convicted criminal.

This text presents an overview of sentencing and punishment from penological, social policy and legal perspectives. It provides an accessible account of the changing attitudes of the public, policy makers and the judiciary regarding what constitutes 'just' punishment.

American Sentencing provides an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of efforts in the state and the federal systems to make sentencing fairer, reduce overuse of imprisonment, and help offenders live law-abiding lives. It addresses a variety of topics and themes related to sentencing and reform, including racial disparities, violence prediction, plea negotiation, case processing, federal and state guidelines, California’s historic “realignment,” and more. This volume covers what students, scholars, practitioners, and policy makers need to know about how sentencing really works, what a half century’s “reforms” have and have not accomplished, how sentencing processes can be made fairer, and how sentencing outcomes can be made more just. Its writers are among America’s leading scholarly specialists—often the leading specialist—in their fields. Clearly and accessibly written, American Sentencing is ideal for teaching use in seminars and courses on sentencing, courts, and criminal justice. Its authors’ diverse perspectives shed light on these issues, making it likely the single, most authoritative source of information on the state of sentencing in America today.

A leading text in criminal law, co-authored by leading scholars in the field, Sentencing Law and Policy draws from extensive sources to present a comprehensive overview of all aspects of criminal sentencing. Online integration with sentencing commissions, thorough treatment of current case law, and provocative notes and questions, stimulate students to consider connections between disparate institutions and examine the purposes and politics of the criminal justice system. The Third Edition has been updated to include recent developments in sentencing case law and provocative discussions of policy debates across a wide range of topics, including discretion in sentencing, race, death penalty abolition, state sentencing guidelines, second-look policies, the impact of new technologies, drug courts and much more. Features: Authors are among the leading sentencing scholars in the United States. Demleitner and Berman are editors of the leading sentencing journal, Federal Sentencing Reporter. Berman is the blog master of the leading sentencing blog, with huge readership. Intuitive organization tracks the process that occurs in every criminal sentencing. Each chapter draws on the most relevant examples from three distinct sentencing worlds: guideline-determinate, indeterminate, and capital. Wide-ranging source materials, including: U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Cases from state high courts, federal appellate courts, and foreign jurisdictions. Statutes and guidelines provisions. Reports and data from sentencing commissions and other agencies. Problems and questions in text are integrated with websites of sentencing commissions, such as the site for the U.S. Sentencing Commissions (www.ussc.gov). Challenging questions ask students to compare institutions and consider the connections between specific sentencing rules and the purposes and politics of criminal justice, emphasizing the effects of sentencing. Notes tell students directly what are the most common practices in U.S. jurisdictions. Instructorsand’ website (www.sentencingbook.net) provides the Teacherand’s Manualand—available only electronically on the siteand— with additional teaching materials to be posted as needed. Studentsand’ website (www.sentencingbook.com) features longer collections of rules and guidelines, statutes, case studies, recent articles, practice problems, sample exams, and a virtual library. Thoroughly updated, the revised Third Edition includes: New Supreme Court cases, including Gall, Kimbrough, Padilla (6th Amendment), and Kennedy (child rape sentencing limits). Policy debates over mass incarceration, the relevance of the budget crisis, and the state-level variation in deincarceration. Shifting authority among key actors in the crack penalty/crack reform debate, including the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA). Expanded core study of discretion in sentencing and attention to race in sentencing, with a close study of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act and the emergence of and“racial impact statementsand” about existing systems and proposed legislation ina number of states. Death penalty abolition. Developments in state sentencing guidelines, noting stand-still in new states, and the relevance of the ALI MPC project. Emergence of and“second lookand” policy discussions, the troubled debate over the theory, operation and impact of parole systems, and the and“supervised releaseand” that has come to replace traditional parole. Discussion of new technologies, developm