What is the examination of a convicted offenders background prior to sentencing?

A sentence is the punishment a judge or magistrate decides should be given to someone who has been convicted of a crime. It comes at the end of a prosecution.

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What are sentences for?
How do judges and magistrates weigh up the five purposes of sentencing?
PART II. Public Policy Legislative Choices
PART III. Legislatively Authorized Sentences
PART IV. The Intermediate Function
What is the primary sentencing tool of the just deserts model?
What are the main principles of sentencing that are applied in Singapore?
What is the main reason there is a time lapse between a trial and sentencing?
What is considered a reasonable sentence?

When a crime is committed and the police arrest and charge someone, the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether or not to take them to court.

If the person is prosecuted, they become a defendant in court. If they either plead guilty or are found guilty by magistrates or, for more serious offences, a jury, they become an offender and will be sentenced by the court.

The judge or magistrates look at the facts of the case and decide the appropriate sentence based on the harm done to the victim and how much responsibility the offender has for the crime. The sentence imposed on an offender should reflect the crime they have committed and be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence. It is up to the judge or magistrates to decide how much weight to give each factor in the case they are dealing with.

What are sentences for?

One of the aims of sentencing is to punish the offender for the crime they have committed. There are other important aims such as preventing crime happening in the future so more people don’t become victims of the same offender.

There are five purposes of sentencing the courts must bear in mind when dealing with the vast majority of adult offenders. These purposes are set out in s.57 of the Sentencing Code.

To punish the offender – this can include going to prison, doing unpaid work in the community, obeying a curfew or paying a fine.
To reduce crime – by preventing the offender from committing more crime, and putting others off from committing similar offences.
To reform and rehabilitate offenders – changing an offender’s behaviour to prevent future crime, for example by requiring them to have treatment for drug addiction or alcohol abuse.
To protect the public – from the offender and from the risk of more crimes being committed by them. This could be by putting them in prison, restricting their activities or supervision by probation.
To make the offender give something back – for example, by the payment of compensation or through restorative justice. Restorative justice gives victims the chance to tell offenders about the impact of their crime and receive an apology.

How do judges and magistrates weigh up the five purposes of sentencing?

When considering a sentence, as well as bearing in mind the five purposes of sentencing, the judge or magistrates must refer to the law, including the maximum and, in some cases, minimum sentence and any sentencing guidelines relevant to the offence that has been committed. The sentencing guidelines set out the process judges and magistrates should follow and the factors they should consider to work out the appropriate sentence.

The factors taken into account will vary depending on the facts of each individual case but, because the judge or magistrates will be following the sentencing guidelines, they will take a consistent approach. The kind of factors the judge or magistrates will consider will include seriousness of the offence, harm caused to the victim, the offender’s level of blame, their criminal record, their personal circumstances and whether they have pleaded guilty. These factors may be relevant in determining the type of sentence as well as how long it might be and the type and number of requirements that might be imposed.

This short video gives an overview of the kinds of factors that influence a sentence (or you could read the transcript).

(a) This chapter deals with sentencing of adult individuals or organizations convicted of felonies and misdemeanors (for which an individual offender may be sentenced to total confinement for six months or more).

(b) This chapter does not deal with capital punishment.

(c) This chapter does not deal with sentencing of juvenile offenders unless those offenders are tried and convicted as adults.

(d) This chapter does not deal with commitments to institutions for treatment programs, whether characterized as criminal or civil, unless a commitment is a part of a sentence imposed following conviction for an offense.

(e) This chapter does not deal with sentencing by military justice tribunals.

Standard 18-1.2 The legislative function

(a) The legislature and executive should determine the public policies of sentencing and enact the statutory framework for the sentencing system. The legislative function is performed best by statutes that articulate the societal purposes in sentencing, define the authorized types of sanctions, and set the maximum limits of those sanctions.

(b) The legislature and executive should establish the organs of government necessary to implement the legislatively determined policies within the legislative framework and delegate to them the powers appropriate to their roles.

Standard 18-1.3 The intermediate function; guided judicial discretion

(a) The legislature should create or empower a governmental agency to transform legislative policy choices into more particularized sentencing provisions that guide sentencing courts. The agency should also be charged with responsibility to collect, evaluate and disseminate information regarding sentences imposed and carried out within the jurisdiction. Guidance of judicial discretion in sentencing and development of an information base about sentencing are the basic aspects of what these Standards describe as "the intermediate function."

(b) The intermediate function should be performed by an agency with state-wide authority. The intermediate function is performed most effectively through a sentencing commission.

(c) If a jurisdiction elects not to create a sentencing commission, the legislature should either undertake the intermediate function itself or designate another organ of government to do so. If the function is delegated to the judicial branch, it should be made the responsibility of the highest state court or a state-wide judicial conference.

Standard 18-1.4 The sentencing function; abolition of jury sentencing; sentencing councils; appellate review of sentences

(a) Imposition of sentences is a judicial function to be performed by sentencing courts. The function of sentencing courts is to impose a sentence upon each offender that is appropriate to the offense and the offender. The jury’s role in a criminal trial should not extend to determination of the appropriate sentence.

(b) Sentencing courts may convene councils, composed of judges sitting on a sentencing court, as advisory panels to develop common criteria for sentencing decisions and to assist individual judges in determining the appropriate sentences in particular cases.

(c) The highest court of the state, if authorized to promulgate rules of criminal procedure, should establish rules for presentence and sentencing proceedings.

(d) Review of sentences imposed by sentencing courts is a judicial function to be performed by appellate courts.

PART II. Public Policy Legislative Choices

Standard 18-2.1 Multiple purposes; consequential and retributive approaches

(a) The legislature should consider at least five different societal purposes in designing a sentencing system:

(i) To foster respect for the law and to deter criminal conduct.

(ii) To incapacitate offenders.

(iii) To punish offenders.

(iv) To provide restitution or reparation to victims of crime.

(v) To rehabilitate offenders.

(b) Determination of the societal purposes for sentencing is a primary element of the legislative function. The legislature may be aided by the agency performing the intermediate function.

Standard 18-2.2 Types of sanctions authorized

(a) The legislature should enact a criminal code that authorizes imposition of the following types of sanctions upon persons convicted of offenses:

(i) Compliance programs. Compliance programs are sanctions intended to promote offenders’ future compliance with the law. For individuals, compliance programs involve control or supervision of offenders within their communities, such as probation. For organizations, compliance programs may involve supervision or change in the management or control of an offender.

(ii) Economic sanctions. Economic sanctions include fines, monetary awards payable to victims, and mandatory community service. The legislature should not authorize imposition of economic sanctions for the purpose of producing revenue.

(iii) Acknowledgment sanctions. Acknowledgment sanctions include court-ordered communications to the public at large, or to particular classes of persons, of information about offenders’ convictions and other facts about the offenses.

(iv) Intermittent confinement. Intermittent confinement is confinement during specified hours in a local facility or in an offender’s residence.

(v) Total confinement. Total confinement is incarceration in a federal, state, county, or municipal institution.

(b) The legislature should be receptive to the development and use of new sanctions not set forth in these standards.

(c) The legislature should enact an adult community corrections act to facilitate the establishment of a comprehensive adult community corrections program. The Model Adult Community Corrections Act is a suggested example.

Standard 18-2.3 Costs of criminal sanctions; resources needed

(a) In designing or changing the criminal justice system, the legislature should consider financial and other costs of carrying out sentences imposed. For this purpose, the legislature should ensure that it receives a "sentencing impact statement" before it enacts new provisions in the criminal code.

(b) The legislature should appropriate the operating and capital funds necessary for each part of the sentencing system to perform its prescribed role. In particular, the legislature should provide adequate funding for alcohol and drug treatment programs.

(d) The legislature should recognize the consequences of not appropriating necessary funds, including the possibility that offenders will not serve appropriate and just sentences.

(e) In the event that the legislature fails to provide necessary funds, the agency performing the intermediate function should see that the aggregate of sentences imposed in conformity with legislative policies does not exceed the facilities and services provided for proper execution of those sentences. In particular, the aggregate of sentences to total confinement should not exceed the lawful capacity of the prison and jail system of the state.

Standard 18-2.4 Severity of sentences generally

The legislature should ensure that maximum authorized levels of severity of sentences and presumptive sentences are consistent with rational, civilized, and humane values. Sentences authorized and imposed, taking into account the gravity of the offenses, should be no more severe than necessary to achieve the societal purposes for which they are authorized.

Standard 18-2.5 Determinacy and disparity

(a) The legislature should create a sentencing structure that enables the agency performing the intermediate function to make reasonably accurate forecasts of the aggregate of sentencing decisions, including forecasts of the types of sanctions and severity of sentences imposed, so that the legislature can make informed changes in sentence patterns through amendment of the criminal code, or the agency can do so through revised guidance to sentencing courts.

(b) The legislature should create a sentencing structure that sufficiently guides the exercise of sentencing courts’ discretion to the end that unwarranted and inequitable disparities in sentences are avoided.

Standard 18-2.6 Individualization of sentences

(a) The legislature should authorize sentencing courts to exercise substantial discretion to determine sentences in accordance with the gravity of offenses and the degree of culpability of particular offenders.

(i) Sentencing courts should be permitted to take into account facts and circumstances concerning the offense or the offender that constitute aggravating or mitigating factors.

(ii) Neither the legislature nor the agency performing the intermediate function should assign specific weights to aggravating or mitigating factors.

(b) The legislature should authorize sentencing courts, sentencing individual offenders, to take into account personal characteristics not material to their culpability that may justify imposition of a different type of sanction or, in limited circumstances, a sentence of lesser severity than would otherwise be imposed.

Standard 18-2.7 Systemic review

(a) The legislature should ensure that valid, current data are compiled on the operation of the criminal justice system, including data on the use and efficacy of each type of sanction.

(b) At least once every ten years, the legislature should re-examine legislative policies regarding sentencing in light of the pattern of sentences imposed and executed.

PART III. Legislatively Authorized Sentences

Standard 18-3.1 Ordinary offenses and offenders

(a) For each offense, the agency performing the intermediate function should guide sentencing courts to the presumptive sentence, i.e., the level of severity of the sentence and the permissible types of sanctions to be imposed in the ordinary case. For cases that are not ordinary, the legislature or the agency should establish criteria for imposing sanctions of more or less severity, or of different types of sanctions. Such criteria should include the factors aggravating or mitigating the gravity of offenses, the degree of offenders’ culpability, and personal characteristics of individual offenders that may be taken into account.

(b) Presumptive sentences may be expressed in terms of ranges of severity of sanctions.

Standard 18-3.2 Mitigating factors

(a) The legislature or the agency performing the intermediate function should identify factors that may mitigate the gravity of an offense or an offender’s culpability in commission of the offense.

(b) The agency performing the intermediate function should guide sentencing courts, upon finding that one or more of the mitigating factors is present in a case, in the use of discretion to choose a level of severity or type of sanction different from the presumptive sentence for an ordinary offense by an ordinary offender.

(d) When presumptive sentences are expressed in ranges of severity, sentencing courts should be guided to consider mitigating factors in determining sentences within the range and, if the factors are substantial, in departing downward from the range.

Standard 18-3.3 Definition of offenses; aggravating factors

(a) The legislature should define offenses so that important factors determining the gravity of offenses are made elements of the offenses rather than aggravating factors to be considered only in sentencing.

(i) The legislature should categorize offenses in which an act of violence is an element separately from similar non-violent offenses so that the levels of severity of authorized and presumptive sentences are appropriate for each type of offense.

(ii) For offenses in which the gravity of the offense varies with the amount of money or quantity of goods, the legislature should differentiate offenses by including amounts or quantities as elements of the offense.

(b) The legislature or the agency performing the intermediate function should identify factors that may aggravate the gravity of an offense or an offender’s culpability in commission of the offense.

(c) The agency performing the intermediate function should guide sentencing courts, upon finding that one or more of the aggravating factors is present in a case, in the use of discretion to choose a level of severity or type of sanction different from the presumptive sentence for an ordinary offense by an ordinary offender.

(d) Aggravating factors should not be assigned specific weights by statute or by guidance to sentencing courts.

(e) When presumptive sentences are expressed in ranges of severity, sentencing courts should be guided to consider aggravating factors in determining sentences within the range and, if the factors are substantial, in departing upward from the range

Standard 18-3.4 Personal characteristics of individual offenders

(a) The legislature and the agency performing the intermediate function should authorize sentencing courts, sentencing individual offenders, to consider their physical, mental, social and economic characteristics, even though not material to their culpability for the offenses, only as provided in this Standard.

(b) The legislature and the agency should permit sentencing courts to use information about offenders’ financial circumstances for the purpose of determination of the amount or terms of fines or other economic sanctions.

(c) Except as provided in (b), the legislature and the agency should provide that sentencing courts may take into account personal characteristics of offenders not material to their culpability to determine the appropriate types of sanctions to impose or, if the characteristics are indicative of circumstances of hardship, deprivation, or handicap, to lessen the severity of sentences that would have been imposed.

(d) The legislature should specify that the following personal characteristics shall not, in and of themselves, be used for this or any other purpose with regard to sentencing:

(i) Race,

(ii) Gender or sexual orientation,

(iii) National origin,

(iv) Religion or creed,

(v) Marital status,

(vi) Political affiliation or belief.

Standard 18-3.5 Criminal history; recidivism

(a) The legislature should authorize more severe sentences for convicted offenders with prior convictions. The extent of enhancement should be reasonably related to the sentence severity levels authorized for the offense of conviction.

(b) Standards for enhancement of sentence on the basis of criminal history should take into account the nature and number of prior convictions and the time elapsed since an offender’s most recent prior conviction and completion of service of sentence. The legislature should fix time periods after which offenders’ prior convictions may not be taken into account to enhance sentence; these periods may vary with the nature of the prior offenses.

(c) The agency performing the intermediate function should guide sentencing courts to the appropriate weight to be given to an offender’s criminal history.

(d) If a jurisdiction has an "habitual offender" statute or comparable law regarding recidivists, the statute should provide that sentences imposed because of prior convictions should be reasonably related in severity to the level of sentence appropriate for the offense of current conviction.

Standard 18-3.6 Offense of conviction as basis for sentence

The legislature and the agency performing the intermediate function should provide that the severity of sentences and the types of sanctions imposed are to be determined by sentencing courts with reference to the offense of conviction in light of defined aggravating and mitigating factors. The offense of conviction should be fixed by the charges proven at trial or established as the factual basis for a plea of guilty or nolo contendere. Sentence should not be based upon the so-called "real offense," where different from the offense of conviction.

Standard 18-3.7 Convictions of multiple offenses

(a) The agency performing the intermediate function should direct sentencing courts to impose on any offender convicted of multiple offenses a consolidated set of sentences that appropriately takes into account all of the offender’s current offenses.

(b) For offenses that are part of a criminal episode,

(i) convictions of offenses whose elements substantially overlap should be merged for sentencing,

(ii) sentencing courts should not change the type of sanction or increase the severity of sentences for multiple offenses merely as a result of the number of counts or charges made from a single episode, and

(iii) where the separate offenses are not merged for sentencing, sentencing courts should impose sentences of a type of sanction and level of severity that take into account the fact that the separate offenses occurred as part of an episode.

(c) If multiple offenses are of a kind that is graded by the amount of money or property involved, sentencing courts should be authorized and guided to determine the appropriate sentence by treating the offenses as a single offense and measuring its gravity by cumulating the amounts of money or property in the separate offenses.

(d) Upon conviction of an offender for multiple offenses not within (b) or (c), the presumptive sentence should be derived by reference to the sentence appropriate for the most serious offense. If the court determines that an enhanced sentence is appropriate because of the other current offenses, the enhancement should ordinarily be determined as if the other current offenses were treated as part of the offender’s criminal history or as factors aggravating the most serious offense.

(e) Sentencing courts, sentencing an offender who is subject to service of a prior sentence, should be authorized and guided to take into account the unexecuted part of the prior sentence in shaping a consolidated set of sentences.

Standard 18-3.8 Multiple offenses in different jurisdictions

(a) The agency performing the intermediate function should direct sentencing courts, sentencing an offender who is subject to a prior sentence of total confinement imposed by a court in another jurisdiction, to take into account the unexecuted part of the prior sentence in shaping the sentence to be imposed.

(b) The legislature should make it possible for multiple sentences of total confinement imposed by different states to be served under one prison authority. A sentencing court should be authorized to impose a sanction of total confinement to run concurrently with an out-of-state sentence, even though the time will be served in an out-of-state institution.

(d) The legislature should authorize implementation of the principles in this standard through interstate and federal-state agreements.

(b) The intermediate function should be performed by an agency with state-wide authority. The intermediate function is performed most effectively through a sentencing commission.

Standard 18-1.4 The sentencing function; abolition of jury sentencing; sentencing councils; appellate review of sentences

(c) The highest court of the state, if authorized to promulgate rules of criminal procedure, should establish rules for presentence and sentencing proceedings.

(d) Review of sentences imposed by sentencing courts is a judicial function to be performed by appellate courts.

PART IV. The Intermediate Function

Standard 18-4.1 Basic responsibilities of the agency performing the intermediate function

(a) Implementation of legislative policy determinations within the statutory framework of the criminal code requires a state-wide agency to develop a more specific set of provisions that guide sentencing courts to presumptive sentences and in the appropriate use of aggravating and mitigating factors, offenders’ criminal history, and offenders’ personal characteristics. This intermediate function is crucial to effective administration of a criminal justice system in a way that meets the established societal objectives, makes optimal use of available resources, and results in sentences that are reasonably determinate.

(b) The agency performing the intermediate function should be the information center for all elements of the criminal justice system. The agency should collect, analyze and disseminate information on the nature and effects of sentences imposed and carried out. The agency should develop means to monitor, evaluate, and predict patterns of sentencing, including levels of severity of sentences imposed and relative use of each type of sanction. Information gathered by the agency is necessary to the legislature’s performance of the legislative function, to the agency’s performance of the intermediate function, and to the courts’ performance of the judicial function. The agency’s responsibility to provide information concerning the sentencing system extends to members of the bar and to the general public.

Standard 18-4.2 Establishment of sentencing commission

(a) If a jurisdiction elects to establish a sentencing commission, the legislature should authorize the commission as a permanent body. The legislature should authorize appointment of commission members and the chair by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate or by the presiding judge of the highest state court. The legislature should provide that the commission be composed of lay persons and persons with varying perspectives and experience within the criminal justice system and with sentencing processes, including at least one representative of the judiciary, prosecuting authorities, defense bar, and correctional and probation agencies. In composing the commission, consideration should be given to the community’s ethnic and gender diversity.

(i) Members of the commission should serve for a term of years long enough to ensure continuity and efficient functioning of the commission, but short enough to allow for the regular infusion of new perspectives and experience.

(ii) Members of the commission should be selected for their knowledge and experience and their ability to adopt a systemic, policy-making orientation. Members should not function as advocates of discrete segments of the criminal justice system.

(b) The legislature should designate an agency in the executive branch to resolve disputes about the correct date of release of offenders serving sentences of total confinement.

What is the primary sentencing tool of the just deserts model?

The primary sentencing tool of the just deserts model is imprisonment, with death used in extreme cases.

What are the main principles of sentencing that are applied in Singapore?

In deciding on the appropriate sentence, the Court will usually take into account four key sentencing principles and decide how much weight to place on each principle in the context of each case: Deterrence. Rehabilitation. Proportion Punishment.

What is the main reason there is a time lapse between a trial and sentencing?

The time needed to complete the presentence report is the main reason for the time lapse between: trial and sentencing. The presentence report is usually completed by a: probation officer retained by the court.

What is considered a reasonable sentence?

A judge must impose a sentence that is sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to: reflect the seriousness of the offense; promote respect for the law; provide just punishment for the offense; adequately deter criminal conduct; protect the public from further crimes by the defendant; and provide the defendant with ...

Default sentence law