Sentencing and Criminal Justice

This chapter has two principal aims – to discuss the ever-expanding range of ancillary orders available to courts at the sentencing stage, and to draw together most of the significant procedural steps in sentencing. Thus, after a summary of the current sentencing framework, part 11.2 of the chapter analyses the range of privatory orders, reparative orders and preventive orders that courts may make. Part 11.3 sets out various requirements to give reasons. Following that, brief consideration is given to several issues arising in procedural context. Thus, before a court passes sentence in any case other than a minor summary one, there will usually be either a trial or, if the plea was guilty, a prosecution statement of facts. In some cases these provide the court with an insufficient basis on which to pass sentence: what is to be done? Again, what is the role of advocates for prosecution and defence in relation to sentencing, and what role should they play? When should pre-sentence reports be relied upon by sentencers? What place do victims have in the sentencing process, and what role should they have?

The statutory sentencing framework

The framework of sentencing established by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 has been much discussed in Chapters 9 and 10 above, and the present summary eschews detailed statutory references in order to convey the essence of the decision-making scheme.