Abstract
Dealing with criminals and preventing crime is a paramount public policy issue. Sentencing law and practice is the means through which we ultimately deal with criminal offenders. Despite its importance and wide-ranging reforms in recent decades, sentencing remains an intellectual and normative wasteland. This has resulted in serious human rights violations of both criminals and victims, incalculable public revenue wastage, and a failure to implement effective measures to reduce crime. This Article attempts to bridge the gulf that exists between knowledge and practice in sentencing and lays the groundwork for a fair and efficient sentencing system. The Article focuses on the sentencing systems in the United States and Australia. The suggested changes would result in a considerable reduction in incarceration numbers, lower crime, and a reduction in the expenditure on prisons. The key concrete recommendations of this Article are that the criminal justice system should move towards a bifurcated system of punishment, reserving imprisonment mainly for serious sexual and violent offenses and reducing the terms of imprisonment in general.
Recommended Citation
Mirko Bagaric,
From Arbitrariness to Coherency in Sentencing: Reducing the Rate of Imprisonment and Crime While Saving Billions of Taxpayer Dollars,
19
Mich. J. Race & L.
349
(2014).
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol19/iss2/4
Included in
Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons