Sentencing The Multiple Offender

Most people assume that criminal offenders have only been convicted of a single crime. However, in reality almost half of offenders stand to be sentenced for more than one crime. The high proportion of multiple crime offenders poses a number of practical and theoretical challenges for the criminal justice system. For instance, how should courts punish multiple offenders relative to individuals who have been sentenced for a single crime? How should they be punished relative to each other? Sentencing Multiple Crimes discusses these questions from the perspective of several legal theories. This volume considers questions such as the proportionality of the crimes committed, the temporal span between the crimes, and the relationship between theories about the punitive treatment of recidivists and multiple offenders. Contributors from around the world and in the fields of legal theory, philosophy, and psychology offer their perspectives to the volume. A comprehensive examination of the dynamics involved with sentencing multiple offenders has the potential to be a powerful tool for legal scholars and professionals, particularly given the practical importance of the topic and the relative dearth of research about punishment of multiple offense cases.

This study examines the approach of Victorian judges to the determination of sentencing for an offender convicted of multiple offences. Justice in sentencing requires fair, coherent and openly stated policies, and their consistent application in sentencing judgments. What is offered here is a description of current practices, as well as the legal principles underpinning them. Given that a substantial percentage of criminal cases involve a multiple offender and that the majority of offences are committed by repeat offenders, the sentencing of such offenders is a matter of significant public policy interest. The empirical work undertaken in this study indicates that there is a need to develop a more detailed and comprehensive set of sentencing principles and an associated numerical framework for guidance.

Sentencing Multiple Crimes confronts the practical and theoretical challenges for the criminal justice system when punishing multiple crime offenders, including the proportionality of the crimes committed, the temporal span between the crimes, and the relationship between theories about the punitive treatment of recidivists and multiple offenders. It provides a comprehensive examination of the dynamics involved with sentencing multiple offenders from the perspective of several legal theories.

Austin Lovegrove examines the sentencing of offenders appearing on multiple offences and how judges, having fixed a prison sentence for each offence, determine an overall sentence for each offender. Analysing judges' verbal protocols for sentencing problems and sentences for fictitious cases, he is able to offer, first, a model of judicial sentencing in the form of a decision strategy comprising working rules deduced from the given responses of judges as they attempted to apply sentencing law, and, second, a numerical guideline in the form of an algebraic model quantifying the application of the working rules. On the basis of this empirical data, Dr Lovegrove furthers understanding of the nature and place of intuition in sentencing and of how the cumulation of sentence can be integrated into a system of proportionality related to the seriousness of single offences.

This volume explores the theory and practice of sentencing in England and Wales, exploring issues such as the role of previous convictions, offender remorse and sentencing female offenders, as well as drawing upon a new and unique source of data from the Crown courts.

The Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice series covers all aspects of criminal law and procedure including criminal evidence. The scope of the series is wide, encompassing both practical and theoretical works. This volume is a thematic collection of essays on sentencing theory by leading writers. The essays consider several issues affecting the discipline including the underlying justifications for the imposition of punishment by the State, areas of sentencing policy that have given rise to particular difficulty, such as the sentencing of drug offenders, the rationale for discounting sentences for multiple offenders, the existence of special sentencing for young offenders, and cases where the injury done to the victim is of a different magnitude from what might have been expected, and includes various questions about the unequal impact on offenders of different sentencing measures. This volume is dedicated to Professor Andrew von Hirsch, whose continuing work on sentencing theory provided the stimulus for the collection.

This book contains commentary on three key sentencing statutes, and on sentencing law for nine offence categories.