This book asks how we should make sense of sentencing when, despite huge efforts world-wide to analyse, critique and reform it, it remains an enigma.Sentencing: A Social Process reveals how both research and policy-thinking about sentencing are confined by a paradigm that presumes autonomous individualism, projecting an artificial image of sentencing practices and policy potential. By conceiving of sentencing instead as a social process, the book advances new policy and research agendas. Sentencing: A Social Process proposes innovative solutions to classic conundrums, including: rules versus discretion; aggravating versus mitigating factors; individualisation versus consistency; punishment versus rehabilitation; efficient technologies versus the quality of justice; and ways of reducing imprisonment.

Using empirical research, this book investigates how defendants are assessed by criminal justice decision-makers, such as judges, lawyers, probation officers, parole board members and those involved in restorative justice. What attitudes and emotions are defendants expected to show? How are these expectations communicated? The book argues that defendants, at various stages of the criminal justice process, are expected to show a (more or less) free acceptance of guilt and individual responsibility along with a display of ‘appropriate’ emotions, ideally including ‘genuine’ remorse. It examines why such expressions of individual responsibility and remorse are so important to decision-makers and the state. With contributors from across the world, including the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Slovenia, the book opens new comparative possibilities and research agendas.

Combining the latest work of leading sentencing and punishment scholars from twelve different countries, this major new international volume answers key questions in the study of sentencing and society. It presents not only a rigorous examination of the latest legal and empirical research from around the world, but also reveals the workings of sentencing within society and as a social practice. Traditionally, work in the field of sentencing has been dominated by legal and philosophical approaches. Distinctively, this volume provides a more sociological approach to sentencing: so allowing previously unanswered questions to be addressed and new questions to be opened. This extensive collection is drawn from around one third of the papers presented at the First International Conference on Sentencing and Society. Almost without exception, the chapters have been revised, cross-referenced and updated. The overall themes and findings of the international volume are set out by the opening "Introduction" and the closing "Reflections" chapters. Research findings on particular penal policy questions are balanced with an analysis of fundamental conceptual issues, making this international volume essential reading for: sentencing and punishment scholars, criminal justice policy-makers, and graduate students.

Combining the latest work of leading sentencing and punishment scholars from twelve different countries, this major new international volume answers key questions in the study of sentencing and society. It presents not only a rigorous examination of the latest legal and empirical research from around the world, but also reveals the workings of sentencing within society and as a social practice. Traditionally, work in the field of sentencing has been dominated by legal and philosophical approaches. Distinctively, this volume provides a more sociological approach to sentencing: so allowing previously unanswered questions to be addressed and new questions to be opened. This extensive collection is drawn from around one third of the papers presented at the First International Conference on Sentencing and Society. Almost without exception, the chapters have been revised, cross-referenced and updated. The overall themes and findings of the international volume are set out by the opening "Introduction" and the closing "Reflections" chapters. Research findings on particular penal policy questions are balanced with an analysis of fundamental conceptual issues, making this international volume essential reading for: sentencing and punishment scholars, criminal justice policy-makers, and graduate students.