NCJ Number
70926
Date Published
1979
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Objectives, discretion, and guidelines in dispositional decisionmaking in the criminal justice process are discussed, with particular attention to the United States and Japan.
Abstract
The major objectives of penal sanctions are retribution (suffering required for the perpetrator of an injurious offense), deterrence (making the consequences of an offense so unpleasant that the offender and others will not repeat the offense), incapacitation (physical restraint that prevents the committing of other offenses), and rehabilitation (preparing the offender to lead a socially useful life). These objectives of sentencing should play a part in all dispositions, with the emphasis on each aspect varying according to the nature of the offense. The legislature of a country or other jurisdiction may wish to reserve to itself the power to determine the kind and quantity of penal sanctions to be applied to individual offenders by severely restricting the scope of discretion to be exercised by some or all criminal justice agencies. Ways in which discretion has been governed in a number of countries are described. While it may be deemed desirable and inevitable, discretion can be guided through training conferences for judges, sentencing recommendations by prosecutors and other administrative agencies, requiring written statements on reasons for sentencing, appellate review of sentences, administrative modification of sentences, setting guidelines or standards for sentencing, and regulating sentencing through presumptive ranges. Ways in which these restrictions on discretion are pursued in various countries are described. Twenty-nine reference notes are provided.