First, the current legal position is examined. The legal and philosophical arguments regarding the relevance of prior convictions are then assessed. The author contends that imposing harsher penalties on offenders for what they have done in the past not only violates the proscription against punishing people twice for one offense, but also amounts to the unacceptable policy that people should be punished for their character in distinction from their specific behavior. The author proposes that prior convictions should not be allowed to have any significance for sentencing with respect to a current conviction. He acknowledges that such an approach to sentencing seems too revisionary to be practical; however, he points out that a closer look at the working of the criminal justice systems shows that the bulk of prior convictions are already handled in this way. Finally, the paper argues that ignoring prior convictions in sentencing will significantly reduce the inherent bias of current sentencing practice against people from deprived social backgrounds. Such a policy would ensure that offenders from deprived backgrounds are not punished more severely than is commensurate with the seriousness of the offense for which they were convicted. 151 notes