Section I of the essay outlines the main issues and public policy problems raised by sentencing and identifies the main elements of the author's proposal for a rational approach to sentencing. The latter involves the construction of a fair and effective system of sentencing guidelines with the following characteristics: a classification of all offenses ranked in order of severity; a range of sanctions ranked by severity of penal value with a presumptive range of sanctions for each offense classification; guidance for judges on what constitutes a typical offense in the classification and more or less serious variations from the typical case; a requirement that judges give reasons for departures from the guideline range; a clear specification of how the offender's criminal record should affect the sanction; and a clear indication of the custody threshold and a distinguishing of the types of cases for which a custodial sentence is normally appropriate. Section II of the essay summarizes the proposals for sentencing reform in the Home Office White Paper "Justice for All" and in the 2002 Criminal Justice Bill. The concluding section of the essay assesses the extent to which the government's proposals make sentencing more rational. The assessment concludes that the proposed legislation would fail to make sentencing more rational, since sentencers will continue to be allowed considerable discretion. There are no procedures for monitoring the extent to which judges adhere to any new sentencing guidelines formulated by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, even if the Council were to develop guidelines designed to help judges to use custody parsimoniously and to use community sentences in a way that balances the demands of crime control and justice. 24 references