NCJ Number
122195
Date Published
1989
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Informal interviews with court sheriffs in three cities in Scotland form the basis of this analysis of how these judicial officials rank competing objectives like punishment, treatment, and expediency and then try to balance them against each other when determining the level of fine to impose in specific cases.
Abstract
About 10 percent of the sheriffs in Scotland took part. They all viewed the fine as both a definite punishment and a flexible penalty. Their main goal in sentencing was to achieve justice through the use of punishments, and they regarded the fine as the most easily justifiable sentence in most circumstances, yet they recognized that the result was a penal system that in many ways was not as punitive as they would like. They preferred to base the amount of the fine on the nature of the crime, although the law required them to take the offenders' means into account.