This paper has shown that despite viewing imprisonment as a severe punishment, sentencers (used for judges) normalized their routine incarceration of individuals by deploying various techniques of neutralization, thereby allowing them to deny final responsibility for their decisions. Sentencers are routed in the daily practice of sentencing, which could lead to a form of “psychic closing off,” a numbing of sensibilities. This is a result of having seen the same old offenses or even the same old faces, all too often. There is little that can be done to alter these practices, unless or until sentencing policies and legislation are conceived and framed on the basis of a much more nuanced understanding of sentencers’ logic in use at the point of imposing a prison sentence. In summation, if sentencers’ use of imprisonment is to be reduced, advisory bodies concerned with sentencing, such as the Sentencing Commission in Scotland, together with policymakers and legislators need to understand sentencers’ logic in use and to question their common sense knowledge. It is necessary to reverse a sentencers’ present logic in use so that their domain presumption is against the use of imprisonment in all but exceptional circumstances. Towards the end of the 20th century, prison populations in most Western jurisdictions rose dramatically. Scotland was not shielded from these trends. Various reasons have been given for the staggering increases in rates of incarceration; one such reason has been sentencing practices. Sentencers are seen as playing a pivotal role in the use of imprisonment and in the severity of prison sentences. References