Racial disparity in sentencing: reflections on the Hood study
Article Abstract:
Roger Hood, in his 1992 report on race and criminal sentencing, found that racial factors affected sentencing in the UK's West Midlands courts. Further analysis confirms the statistical validity of his findings. Hood's report is most noteworthy for clarifying that racial bias in the criminal justice system may be instigated by policies enforced prior to the sentencing procedure, such as strictly enforcing laws that criminalize small street sales of marijuana and seeking plea bargains. Blacks are more likely to be street level drug sellers than whites, while whites plead guilty more often than blacks.
Publication Name: The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0265-5527
Year: 1997
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Anglo-American approaches to cumulative sentencing and the implications for UK sentencing policy
Article Abstract:
The UK's Conservative Party, on Oct 12, 1995, proposed the imposition of mandatory criminal sentences under certain circumstances. This policy would be detrimental to both UK society and the country's criminal justice system, as an analysis of the US experience with such statutes, especially in California, demonstrates. The negative implications of mandatory sentencing laws for the UK include a probable disproportionate increase in the number of minority offenders incarcerated and the overburdening of the criminal justice system because of the likely collapse of plea bargaining for covered offenses.
Publication Name: The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0265-5527
Year: 1997
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Beyond just deserts: sentencing violent and sexual offenders
Article Abstract:
The UK Criminal Justice Act of 1991 allows longer than normal sentences for violent and sex offenders who are considered dangerous to society. This sentencing provision is fraught with problems. Such dangerousness is difficult to predict. The length of sentence imposed on these offenders follows no pattern and is apparently arbitrary. The sentences imposed defy the concept of proportionality, or just deserts, often bearing no relation to the severity of the offense committed. Such sentences lack a basis in principle and ignore basic human rights by punishing people for offenses not yet committed.
Publication Name: The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0265-5527
Year: 1997
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
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