Abstract
When an offender is sentenced in the criminal courts of England and Wales, the primary factor that determines the severity of the sentence is the seriousness of the offence. This principle has been firmly established in statute by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. In section 143(1) of this act, courts are instructed to determine the seriousness of an offence by considering the offender’s culpability in committing the offence and any harm which the offence caused, was intended to cause, or might fore-seeably have caused. The principle that the seriousness of the offence should be the primary basis for the severity of the sentence is further reinforced by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, an independent, nondepartmental body of the Ministry of Justice, established by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The Council puts this principle into practice in a number of ways, one of which is the provision of offence-specific sentencing guidelines that operationalise the concept of offence seriousness, (see Ashworth and Roberts, 2013 for discussion of the format of sentencing guidelines.)
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© 2015 Keir Irwin-Rogers and Thomas W. Perry
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Irwin-Rogers, K., Perry, T.W. (2015). Exploring the Impact of Sentencing Factors on Sentencing Domestic Burglary. In: Roberts, J.V. (eds) Exploring Sentencing Practice in England and Wales. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137390400_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137390400_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48259-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39040-0
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