Search

Members of racial, ethnic, and Indigenous minorities have long accounted for disproportionate percentages of prison admissions in Western nations and of prison populations. The minorities affected vary between countries. Discriminatory or differential treatment by criminal justice officials from policing through to parole is part of the problem. Much media and professional attention focuses on sentencing, where the decision-making is most public. An emerging body of research identifies sentencing as a cause—or, at the very least, an amplifier—of minority overincarceration. Solutions aiming to reduce it have been implemented, with varying but modest degrees of success, in the United States, England and Wales, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Progress toward reducing minority overincarceration has been slow. Most US sentencing commissions have failed to determine the extent to which their guidelines contribute to the problem. The Sentencing Council of England and Wales has taken the limited step of warning judges about racial disparities, without suggesting remedial steps to be taken. Courts in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand have taken more activist approaches, mitigating sentences when offenders adduce evidence of discrimination or abuse by criminal justice officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime victims and victims’ advocates have for many years called for greater input into the criminal process, and in particular at the stage of sentencing. Today, victims in almost all common law countries have the opportunity to participate in the sentencing process, usually by providing information about the impact of the crime. This impact evidence is placed before a sentencing court in the form of a victim impact statement (VIS) or victim personal statement (VPS) as it is known in England and Wales. This article reviews findings from the last few years of data from the Witness and Victim Experience Survey (WAVES) which was conducted by the Ministry of Justice. We review findings from the last administrations of the survey. In the most recent administration of the survey (2009–2010), less than half (43%) of victims recalled being offered a statement. Over the most recent three-year period (2007–2010), a comparable percentage (42%) of the victims recalled being offered the opportunity to make a VPS; almost half (45%) explicitly responded that they had not been given an opportunity to make a VPS. In addition, significant variation emerged across local justice areas. The percentage of victims reporting having been offered a VPS varied from a low of 29 per cent in London to a high of 63 per cent in Northumbria – a range of 34 per cent. These and other findings suggest that the VPS scheme is being inconsistently implemented across the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the latest developments in common law jurisdictions in England and Wales. It states that as a result of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 much has changed such as a new departure test has been created, and the old statutory bodies have been replaced by a single new Council. It also states that the government has proposed to increase the guilty plea discount.

This article examines an under-explored area of sentencing law in England and Wales: sentencing outside the definitive guidelines. The issue has come to the fore as a result of judgments arising from the serious public disorder of last summer. Sentencing outside the definitive sentencing guidelines is of course not restricted to riot-related offending; other circumstances will inevitably arise which impel courts to depart from the guidelines ranges. Accordingly, it is worth exploring the ways in which courts might sentence offenders for criminal acts unforeseen by the guidelines authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1965, it was thought that nothing less than a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment would be an acceptable replacement for the death penalty for murder in England and Wales. It was assumed that anything else would have led to a significant loss of public confidence in the criminal justice system. The authors have recently conducted what is believed to be the first survey in this country that tests this assumption, as well as the extent of public knowledge and belief of the current system for sentencing convicted murderers. The survey casts doubt over the assumption and highlights the misunderstanding and lack of knowledge on which public opinion is based. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines amendments to the sentencing guidelines in England and Wales in 2011. Two sets of guidelines will be used by sentencers as a result of the expected delay in the replacement of all guidelines. The three categories of seriousness of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) are discussed. The significance of the new guide lies in the fact that it corrects structural and conceptual weaknesses in its predecessor and it creates a model for future guidance.

A considerable body of scholarship has explored the jury as a legal institution but community reaction to the institution and function of the jury has not, to date, been the subject of a review. The present article fills this void by addressing a number of important questions about public attitudes to the jury. The focus is upon public attitudes to the criminal jury in England and Wales, although limited comparisons are made with public opinion in other jurisdictions. The results demonstrate widespread support for, and confidence in, the criminal jury, both in this country and in other common law jurisdictions. The research record also demonstrates strong public opposition to proposals to restrict the right to trial by jury. There is some evidence, however, that support for the right to trial by jury may decline in the context of offenders charged with terrorism-related offences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the impact of criminal history on sentencing in England and Wales. Changes in the system of sentencing offenders under the Criminal Justice Act of 2003; Imposition of sentences before the proclamation of the Act; Factors to consider in determining the severity of a sentence.