Introduction

Chapter 2 (Choices) discussed how every criminal trial is preceded by myriad decisions by lay and legally trained state officials, which can operate to alter the effect of statutory offence provisions. This chapter concerns an equally important decision made after every successful criminal prosecution: the choice about what to do with someone who has been found guilty of an offence. In the Australian criminal justice system, this choice generally involves a judge deciding what punishment may be imposed on the offender and a series of subsequent choices by government officials about how to carry out that punishment. This chapter is concerned with the judge’s ‘sentencing’ decision.

Like the law of criminal procedure, sentencing law (and the even vaster practice and politics of punishment) is an enormous field that would require a lengthy treatise to cover even a single jurisdiction. This chapter’s focus is narrower, examining how courts assess offence seriousness, the upper limit on most Australian sentencing.