Table of Contents
Preface v
Acknowledgements vii
1 Introduction: The Emergence of the Proportionate Sentence 1
1.1 The Origins of the Desert Model 1
1.2 Proportionality-based Sentencing: The Example of Sweden's Sentencing Scheme 4
1.3 Attractions of the Proportionate Sentence 7
1.4 Prevention-based Sentencing as a Workable Alternative? 8
1.5 Ethical Presuppositions of the Desert Rationale 11
1.6 Topics Addressed in this Volume 13
2 Sentence Proportionality Sketched Briefly 17
2.1 Censure and Penal Desert 17
2.2 The Rationale for Proportionality 20
2.3 Proportionality as 'Limiting' or 'Determining'? 21
2.4 Gauging Crimes' Seriousness and Punishments' Severity 23
2.5 Role of Previous Criminal Convictions 24
2.6 Inclusion of Crime-control Aims? 25
2.7 Desert and Increased Penal Severity? 27
3 Why Should the Criminal Sanction Exist? 29
3.1 Varieties of Desert Theories 29
3.2 Censure-Based Justifications for Punishment 31
3.3 Why the Censure in Punishment? 32
3.4 Why the Hard Treatment in Punishment? 36
3.5 The Relation between the Two Elements 39
4 Why Punish Proportionately? 45
4.1 Beccaria and Bentham's Deterrence Argument 46
4.2 Positive General Prevention: The Inhibition-reinforcement Argument 47
4.3 The Argument from Censure 49
4.4 The Censure Argument Stated More Fully 50
5 Ordinal and Cardinal Proportionality 55
5.1 Ordinal Proportionality 56
5.2 The Sub-requirement? of Ordinal Proportionality: Parity and Rank-ordering 58
5.3 How Much Does Ordinal Proportionality Constrain Reliance on Crime-prevention Concerns? 58
5.4 Cardinal Magnitude and the Fixing of the Penalty System's Anchoring Points 59
5.5 How Much Guidance Regarding Anchoring of the Penalty Structure? 60
6 Seriousness, Seventy and the Living-standard 63
6.1 Gauging Crimes' Seriousness 63
6.2 Gauging Punishments' Seventy 67
7 The Role of Previous Convictions 71
7.1 Explanations Directed to the Present Act 73
7.2 Explanations Directed to the Criminal Career 74
7.3 An Alternative Account: 'Tolerance' and the Prior Record 75
7.4 Multiple Previous Offending? 79
7.5 The Institutional and Social Context 80
7.6 An Illustration: Sweden's Treatment of Reoffending 82
7.7 Seriousness and Number of Previous Convictions 84
8 Proportionate Non-custodial Sanctions 87
8.1 Basic Elements of the Model 87
8.2 Interchanges: Equivalent Penal Bite 89
8.3 Back-up Sanctions for Breach of Conditions 93
9 A 'Modified' Desert Model? 97
9.1 Exceptional Departures 98
9.2 'Range Models' 103
9.2a 'Limiting Retributivism' 103
9.2b A 'Modified' Desert Model 104
10 The Politics of the Desert Model 107
10.1 The Desert Model's Political Pedigree 107
10.2 Limiting Severity: Desert vs Penal Utilitarianism 111
10.3 Proportionality and Increased Severity? 115
10.4 'Law and Order' Strategies 118
10.5 Arguments about 'Underlying Ills' 122
10.6 The Vacuousness' Argument 125
11 Proportionate Sentences for Juveniles 127
11.1 Introduction 127
11.2 Culpability 129
11.2a Cognitive Factors 130
11.2b Volitional Controls 133
11.2c Youth 'Discount' or Individual Assessment? 134
11.3 Punitive Bite 135
11.4 A Special 'Tolerance' for juveniles? 137
Appendix: The Desert Model's Evolution-A Brief Chronology 143
Bibliography 151
Index 161
