SENTENCING OPTIONS

Section C - Sentencing option



Section C - Sentencing options

Introduction

The debate over the statutory threshold for custody and the factors which influence the decision to imprison has to date overlooked the general public. This is regrettable; there are important theoretical and practical reasons to explore public opinion regarding the use of custody. At a theoretical level it is necessary to understand the public's model of sentencing and crime seriousness. Do the public perceive a bright line between custody and community, one which is based largely on the perceived seriousness of the offence? That is, do they conceive of offences falling into relatively distinct categories, or might they favor a more flexible approach in which personal characteristics of the offender play an important role in determining whether custody is imposed?

Practice

In England and Wales, the Home Office Sentencing Review (2001) asked a representative sample of the public to rate the importance of a number of mitigating and aggravating factors at sentencing. Unfortunately, the Review's report provides little information about public responses, listing only respondents who cited a given factor as one which 'should have a great deal of influence on a sentence'. Finally, the predecessor to the Sentencing Council commissioned three public opinion research projects into perceptions of specific offences or offence categories, namely domestic burglary, rape and culpable driving causing death. All three studies asked members of the public about mitigating factors. One of these used a small sample, making it hard to draw conclusions about attitudes in the population. Moreover, since in all three studies the context was offence-specific it is hard to generalize the findings more broadly. If the view of the public as punitive and inflexible sentences is correct, it would be reasonable to expect little sympathy for pleas in mitigation. A relatively rigid approach to ...