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Beyond Just Deserts: Sentencing Violent and Sexual Offenders

NCJ Number
171295
Journal
Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 36 Issue: 3 Dated: (August 1997) Pages: 284-292
Author(s)
C M V Clarkson
Date Published
1997
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article examines British courts' use of Section 2(2)(b) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to make predictions of dangerousness and to enhance the sentences of violent offenders and sex offenders, with emphasis on the implications for justice and sentencing disparity and the impact of the Crime Sentences Act 1997.
Abstract
The law requires the judge to make a two-part prediction to determine whether an enhanced sentence is necessary. This determination requires evidence that the offender will continue offending, and such offenses must be likely to cause death or serious physical or psychological personal injury. Sentencers must take into consideration all the available information about the offender and the circumstances, but in reality, they use previous offending and pre-sentence and psychiatric reports as the strongest predictors of dangerousness. An analysis of 31 Court of Appeal decisions reported since 1993 reveals that sentences were increased by an average of 73.5 percent. Even if this figure is inaccurate, it is clear that many sentences are being extended to a point where proportionality or a reasonable relationship to the offense does not exist. Thus, the current law and practice is unprincipled and raises a basic human rights issue of whether punishment of people for what they might do in the future is justified and what this approach implies for sentencing disparity. The 1997 proposal for automatic life sentences for conviction for a second serious offenses is also arbitrary and unjust and should be rejected. Note, list of cases, and 11 references

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