By Diarmuid Griffin

Existing research on life imprisonment focuses on interrogating the sentence from a human rights perspective, exploring lived experiences, and examining release processes. There are few studies that analyse the judicial practice of imposing life imprisonment. This article examines judicial rationales in imposing and upholding discretionary sentences of life imprisonment in Ireland, from 1987 to 2022. The findings indicate that it is selectively imposed (primarily for sexual or homicide offences). Sentence selection is frequently influenced by the multiplicity of offending, the exceptional nature of the crime(s) and the vulnerability of the victim(s). Factors such as the risk of reoffending and previous criminal history also appeared to influence sentence outcomes. The indeterminate nature of the sentence was viewed as beneficial in addressing concerns relating to public protection. Author: Diarmuid Griffin

IRISH JUDICIAL STUDIES JOURNAL , 2024. 18p.

By The Sentencing Council for England and Wales

The Sentencing Council for England and Wales was set up in 2010 and produces guidelines for use by all members of the judiciary when sentencing after conviction in criminal cases. The Council promotes a clear, fair, and consistent approach to sentencing by issuing sentencing guidelines and explanatory materials. It has a statutory duty to monitor these sentencing guidelines and to draw conclusions from the information obtained (s129 Coroners and Justice Act 2009). On 1 October 2018, the Council published the intimidatory offences guidelines, which are a package of five guidelines covering 11 offences, including harassment and stalking offences. The five guidelines are for use in all courts and apply to all adult offenders (those aged 18 or over at the time of sentence). The guidelines came into force on 1 October 2018 and cover: • a combined guideline covering the offences of harassment, stalking and racially or religiously aggravated harassment/stalking • a combined guideline covering the offences of harassment (putting people in fear of violence), stalking (involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress), and racially or religiously aggravated harassment (putting people in fear of violence)/stalking (involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress) • threats to kill • disclosing private sexual images • controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship The Council developed guidelines to replace the Magistrates’ Court Sentencing Guidelines (MCSG) for harassment, harassment (putting people in fear of violence), racially or religiously aggravated harassment, racially or religiously aggravated harassment (putting people in fear of violence) and threats to kill, to provide more detailed guidance as these guidelines were only applicable to the magistrates’ courts. Additionally, the package introduced new guidelines for stalking, stalking (involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress), racially or religiously aggravated stalking, and racially or religiously aggravated stalking (involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress), as there were no guidelines previously covering these offences. The guidelines also covered the newer offences of disclosing private sexual images and controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship which were introduced in 2015. The aims of the guidelines are to ensure that all sentences are proportionate to the offence committed and in relation to other offences.

London: Sentencing Council for England and Wales, 2025. 93p.

By Beatrix Immenkamp with Greta Baltikauskaite, Graphics: Samy Chahri

The European arrest warrant (EAW) is a judicial decision issued by a Member State with a view to the arrest and surrender by another Member State of a requested person for the purposes of a criminal prosecution or a custodial sentence. Between 2005 and 2022, some 231 005 EAWs were issued, and 69 688 persons were surrendered. The functioning of the EAW system – as set out in this infographic – requires a high level of trust between the judicial authorities of the issuing and the executing Member State, which has at times generated challenges and tensions. In the internal security strategy published on 1 April 2025, the Commission stated that it would 'assess the need to further strengthen' the EAW.

Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025. 2p.

By Leigh Courtney, Barbara Pierce, Ashlin Oglesby-Neal , Susan Nembhard

Many states have enacted comprehensive justice system reforms to reduce incarceration and community supervision in order to focus funding more on people at higher risk of reoffending and invest in strategies to achieve better outcomes for people and communities. Many policy reforms have been spurred by significant growth in the number of people on community supervision. According to a 2018 Pew Charitable Trusts chartbook, probation and parole populations nationwide grew 239 percent from 1980 to 2016 (Horowitz, Utada, and Fuhrmann 2018). Notably, community supervision populations peaked in 2007 and then fell 11 percent between 2007 and 2016. 1 To date, research on the impact of states’ community supervision policy changes has not kept pace with the rate at which they have been enacted, leaving policymakers and practitioners with a knowledge gap on which reforms have made a difference and why. The Urban Institute and the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) assessed policies reforming probation sentencing in two states, Louisiana and Georgia, to understand their impact on people who are supervised and on outcomes including revocation and successful completion. Reforming probation sentencing is one way to ensure scarce resources are prioritized for supporting and monitoring people when their risk of failing supervision is highest, not for long periods after this risk has declined. Research has shown that supervision is most effective when it focuses on people who are at higher risk of reoffending and that recidivism rates drop precipitously after the first year of supervision (Alper, Durose, and Markman 2018; Andrews and Bonta 2010). A statutory reduction of the length of probation supervision terms can be a direct way to reduce the number of people under community supervision. When implemented consistently, probation sentencing reform may yield more reliable reductions of the supervised population than reforms that depend heavily on changing supervision practices. And by limiting how long supervision resources can be expended on people at low risk of failure, these reforms can yield significant gains in cost savings and community safety. In contrast to other community supervision reforms (such as earned discharge policies) that require people to incrementally earn time off potentially lengthy sentences at the back ends of their terms, probation sentencing reform establishes upper limits that apply uniformly to entire categories of people at the front ends of their terms. Despite these potential benefits, wholesale reductions of probation sentence lengths are uncommon. States’ strategies for reducing probation sentences have varied: some have shortened all probation sentences for certain offenses by reducing the maximum probation sentences allowed for those offenses, whereas others have simply granted judges the flexibility to impose shorter sentences than the maximums. Meanwhile, some states have used creative strategies to establish a presumption of shorter probation terms without changing sentencing requirements. These strategies blend front-end reductions of sentences with mechanisms similar to earned discharge policies that enable early release, but they also grant courts and supervising agencies discretion to extend those sentences at the back end because of noncompliance with supervision terms. For this reason, any assessment of the impact of probation sentencing reforms must consider the details of how they have been implemented and the extent to which discretion is allowed. Urban and CJI assessed implementation and analyzed outcomes of different approaches in Louisiana and Georgia. In 2017, Louisiana’s Senate Bill 139 eliminated the one-year minimum for all probation sentences and reduced the maximum sentence for felony probation from five to three years for a first, second, or third conviction for a nonviolent, non-capital felony. Approximately 89 percent of new probation starts in 2018–19 were for nonsex, nonviolent offenses. The policy allows judges to extend probation terms up to five years for people who do not comply with supervision conditions. The law affects everyone sentenced to probation as of November 2017. Also passed in 2017, Georgia’s Senate Bill 174 established two mechanisms for reducing probation sentence lengths. First, it requires that a probation sentence for any first-time felony conviction with a straight probation sentence (with no prison time) include a behavioral incentive date (BID) of three years or less, at which point the Georgia Department of Community Supervision (DCS) must file a petition to terminate probation if the person has not been arrested for anything other than a nonserious traffic offense during their probation term, has complied with the conditions of supervision, and has paid all restitution owed. About a third of the felony probation population from July 2017 to December 2020 was eligible for BIDs.2 Second, it makes early termination of probation available to anyone convicted of certain nonviolent felony offenses who has been sentenced to three years or more and who has not previously had their supervision revoked. The law requires DCS to file a petition for early termination for anyone who has completed three years of supervision and has not been arrested for anything other than a non-serious traffic offense, has complied with the conditions of supervision, and has paid all restitution. Courts may accept or reject BID petitions and early termination petitions at ends of their terms, probation sentencing reform establishes upper limits that apply uniformly to entire categories of people at the front ends of their terms. Despite these potential benefits, wholesale reductions of probation sentence lengths are uncommon. States’ strategies for reducing probation sentences have varied: some have shortened all probation sentences for certain offenses by reducing the maximum probation sentences allowed for those offenses, whereas others have simply granted judges the flexibility to impose shorter sentences than the maximums. Meanwhile, some states have used creative strategies to establish a presumption of shorter probation terms without changing sentencing requirements. These strategies blend frontend reductions of sentences with mechanisms similar to earned discharge policies that enable early release, but they also grant courts and supervising agencies discretion to extend those sentences at the back end because of noncompliance with supervision terms. For this reason, any assessment of the impact of probation sentencing reforms must consider the details of how they have been implemented and the extent to which discretion is allowed. Urban and CJI assessed implementation and analyzed outcomes of different approaches in Louisiana and Georgia. In 2017, Louisiana’s Senate Bill 139 eliminated the one-year minimum for all probation sentences and reduced the maximum sentence for felony probation from five to three years for a first, second, or third conviction for a nonviolent, non-capital felony. Approximately 89 percent of new probation starts in 2018–19 were for nonsex, nonviolent offenses. The policy allows judges to extend probation terms up to five years for people who do not comply with supervision conditions. The law affects everyone sentenced to probation as of November 2017. Also passed in 2017, Georgia’s Senate Bill 174 established two mechanisms for reducing probation sentence lengths. First, it requires that a probation sentence for any first-time felony conviction with a straight probation sentence (with no prison time) include a behavioral incentive date (BID) of three years or less, at which point the Georgia Department of Community Supervision (DCS) must file a petition to terminate probation if the person has not been arrested for anything other than a non-serious traffic offense during their probation term, has complied with the conditions of supervision, and has paid all restitution owed. About a third of the felony probation population from July 2017 to December 2020 was eligible for BIDs.2 Second, it makes early termination of probation available to anyone convicted of certain nonviolent felony offenses who has been sentenced to three years or more and who has not previously had their supervision revoked. The law requires DCS to file a petition for early termination for anyone who has completed three years of supervision and has not been arrested for anything other than a nonserious traffic offense, has complied with the conditions of supervision, and has paid all restitution. Courts may accept or reject BID petitions and early termination petitions at

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2022. 40p.

By UK Ministry of Justice

In the summer of 2024, capacity pressures brought the prison system dangerously close to collapse. The adult prison population, estimated to be over 87,000 as of April 2025,1 currently exceeds the capacity the system is designed to accommodate and is projected to increase. To address these capacity challenges, successive governments have been forced to adopt emergency measures to free up spaces, including reducing the release point for some prisoners from 50% of their sentence to 40% (SDS40).2 These measures cannot resolve the capacity crisis in the long term nor fortify the effective running of our prisons. Commissioned by the Ministry of Justice in October 2024, this Independent Sentencing Review (“the Review”) was given the task of a comprehensive re-evaluation of our sentencing framework, to ensure the country is never again in a position where it has more prisoners than prison places, and the government is forced to rely on the emergency release of prisoners. This Review also welcomes the opportunity to think more imaginatively about how we sentence and use custody, holding the view that our current system, regardless of prison capacity pressures, requires considerable reform to rehabilitate offenders more successfully, reduce reoffending and support victims. The purposes of sentencing, as set out in legislation, are punishment, reduction of crime, reparation, rehabilitation and public protection. The Review’s Part 1 report History and Trends in Sentencing found that over the last two decades, sentencing has focused disproportionately on punishment with a view from politicians and the media that “the only form of punishment that counts is imprisonment.”3 Punishment is an important aim of the criminal justice system and prison plays a vital role in delivering punishment. However, too often political decision-making has been based on an approach that punishment is all that matters, with political parties lacking appropriate focus on the most effective ways to reduce crime. This is demonstrated by the high levels of reoffending, suggesting that the current approach is failing to achieve rehabilitation and address the root causes of offending. Overall, proven reoffending rates for adult offenders have fluctuated between

Recommendations

There are nine detailed chapters in the review, each with accompanying recommendations – a total of 48 in all. I summarise the nine chapter headings and overall recommendation for each below.

Revisiting the statutory purposes of sentencing – recommends amending the statutory purposes of sentencing to emphasise the importance of protecting victims and reducing crime.

Strengthening alternatives to custody in the community – recommends revising the sentencing framework to ensure sentencers can take full advantage of the flexibility of community sentencing, including financial penalties and ancillary orders.

Reducing reliance on custody – the expected recommendation to legislate to ensure short custodial sentences are only used in exceptional circumstances.

Incentivising progression from custody to community – prisoners can be released earlier through “earned progression” defined as rewarding compliance with prison rules.

Taking a victim-centred approach – recommendations to improve public awareness and information on sentencing, more transparency about sentence lengths and better support to victims.

Targeted approach to different groups – recommendations aimed at prolific offenders, women, drug and alcohol offenders, older offenders, Foreign National Offenders and sex offenders.

The role of the probation service – more investment in the service itself and funding for Third Sector and community organisations.

The role of technology – rapid roll out of technology in offender supervision, improved data sharing and explore use of advanced AI.

A sustainable prison system – longer term recommendations including an external advisory body and transparency around the impact of new legislation on prison capacity.

London: UK Ministry of Justice, 2025. 192p.

By Phil Bowen and Ellie Brown

• This briefing considers the three criminal justice Bills currently before Parliament— the Sentencing Bill; the Criminal Justice Bill; and the Victims and Prisoners’ Bill— and estimates the impact they will have on the demand placed on the prisons and on probation specifically. (In a separate briefing, we have looked specifically at how to strengthen provision for victims within the Victims and Prisoners’ Bill). We recognise our estimates include a good deal of guesswork but we have tried as far as possible to ground them in the existing Government figures in the public realm. • The backdrop of these new Bills is stark. From court backlogs, high probation service caseloads and an overcrowded and overflowing population in the adult male prisons, the adult criminal justice system is already struggling with demand. The Sentencing Bill itself was originally announced as part of a broader response to acute prison capacity issues, and included a new executive early release scheme. • Our assessment is that, taken together, the proposals to reduce demand on, and increase the capacity of, our prison system are unlikely to adequately deal with the acute pressures on the adult male prison estate in the medium term. Measures like a presumption against short sentences may delay the point at which demand outstrips supply but we estimate that, by December 2026, we are likely to reach a capacity crunch point again. • Turning to probation, a number of the measures to alleviate prison demand place do so by placing additional burdens on the probation service (we estimate 14,000 extra cases over the next four years). There is currently insufficient assurance that probation have the workforce and resources to take this on. We have concerns that the current proposal to place individuals onto Suspended Sentence Orders (SSOs) as an alternative to short prison sentences could backfire due to this lack of probation resourcing, and this may further undermine judicial and public confidence in community sentences more generally. • We suggest that the Ministry of Justice pay special attention to the recommendations of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the House of Lords report on community sentences that “Deferred sentencing can be used… to create incentives for low-level, repeat offenders to engage with more intensive rehabilitative activities.” We also recommend the Ministry of Justice extends existing alternatives to short prison sentences for women (both diversion away from the court system as well as problem-solving court alternatives for women), and ensure that the presumption against short sentences applies for people under 18 as well. • Finally, we have concerns about the measures in the Criminal Justice Bill to tackle rough sleeping and nuisance begging through new civil orders which, if breached, can result in criminal proceedings. There is a lack of credible evidence advanced for these proposals and the Government’s own impact assessment seems to ignore the considerable evidence that similar attempts to use these types of order have been ineffective, poorly implemented, disproportionately punish the most vulnerable and do so while draining resources away from evidence-based preventative measures. We are also concerned that the proposals are accompanied by no assessment of their impact on the courts or other parts of the criminal justice system

London: Centre for Justice Innovation 2023. 10p.

By Jose Pina-Sánchez, Julian V. Roberts and Jonathan Bild,

This Research Bulletin reports findings from the first comprehensive analysis of ‘sentence inflation’ in England and Wales. Unlike previous analyses, this one encompasses all years since 2005 and all offences.

In a previous research bulletin by the Sentencing Academy Pina-Sánchez et al. (2023) documented a significant increase in sentence severity in England and Wales over the last two decades. However, the extent to which this increase in sentence severity is due to a genuine process of ‘sentence inflation’ was unclear. The changing nature of crime might have affected the offence mix processed through our criminal courts. It is possible that the cases sentenced by the courts have become more serious over the period in question. To the extent that this has occurred it would constitute ‘explainable’ or natural inflation. If the cases sentenced are more serious, sentence severity should reflect this changing pattern.

The analysis relates two indices. One – the Imprisonment Index – measures sentence severity by combining the custody rate and Average Custodial Sentence Length (ACSL). The second index measures the seriousness of cases appearing for sentencing.

The Sentencing Academy’s submission to the Sentencing Review reported new analyses comparing trends of sentence severity and crime seriousness for three offence groups: sexual offences, drug offences, and criminal damage offences. In this report, we expand that preliminary analysis to include all major offence groups. This enables us to estimate the overall increase in sentence severity independent of changes in the mix of offences sentenced.

We estimate that since 2005, sentence severity has increased by 62%, while the seriousness of crimes processed through courts has increased by only 8%. This means that 87% of the increased sentence severity over the period was due to changes in sentencing practice, or as we term it, ‘sentence inflation’. Put differently, we estimate that sentencing in England and Wales is today 54% more punitive than in 2005. This is the first analysis to provide an estimate of the overall degree of sentence inflation in this or any other jurisdiction.

Our analysis reveals that sentence inflation has been far from uniform. Whereas no discernible pattern can be detected for drug offences, or public order offences, sentence severity for offences involving violence or weapons related offences has doubled since 2005. Sentence severity for fraud offences has tripled.

London: The Sentencing Academy, 2025. 7p.

By Jared Trujillo

The relationship between incarceration and poverty is circular, cyclical, and symbiotic – poverty is a cause of incarceration, and incarceration causes poverty. In the 1970’s and 1990’s, New York led the country in enacting draconian sentencing laws that required judges to sentence children and adults to longer periods of incarceration, while also reducing the ability of incarcerated people to earn time off of their sentences for participation in rehabilitative, vocational, and educational programming. For the past half century, these harsh sentencing laws have been the primary driver of mass incarceration in New York. As a result, generations of families with criminal legal system involvement have been damned to multigenerational poverty. This is most profound in low-income communities, particularly low-income Black and brown communities.

Incarceration often deprives children, partners, and other family members of a breadwinner. Even when breadwinners are released from incarceration, incomes for former imprisoned people are between ten and twenty percent lower than those who were never imprisoned. Even incomes for those formerly incarcerated in juvenile detention facilities are lower than the incomes of those who were not. Further, the children of incarcerated parents suffer from psychological, emotional, and educational trauma. These children are six times more likely to be incarcerated in their lives than their peers who do not have incarcerated parents. Romantic partners and co-parents of incarcerated people often struggle with anxiety, stress, and financial precarity. Mass incarceration in New York continues to be a policy choice, and sentencing reform is an important tool to fight individual and multigenerational poverty.

This article ultimately presents five legislative proposals that would reduce mass incarceration in New York. Repealing the juvenile offender statute will prevent children as young as 13 years old from being given life sentences; the Youth Justice and Opportunities Act would expand, strengthen, and establish alternative sentencing structures for people under 26 years old that would limit the length of incarceration while also sparing young people from the scarlet mark of a permanent criminal conviction; the Eliminate Mandatory Minimums Act would unchain judges from the rigidity and cruelty of New York’s current sentencing paradigm, while requiring them to consider noncustodial sentences and alternatives to incarceration; the Second Look Act would enable those who are already sentenced to long periods of incarceration to apply for a reduced sentence; and the Earned Time Act would enable incarcerated people to earn time off of their sentence for participating in educational, rehabilitative, or vocational programming.

26 CUNY L. Rev. 225 (2023). 42p.

By Jay Gormley, Gabrielle Watson, Gavin Dingwall, Jade Mouton, Jonathan Bild and Julian Roberts

Firearms offences are statistically rare yet in light of their potential for harm cause considerable public concern. The offences vary greatly in terms of their nature and possible sentences. As a result, the sentencing exercise is often complex. Courts must weigh the harm caused, intended, or which was reasonably foreseeable, as well as the culpability of the individual offender. Quantifying the harm caused can be particularly challenging where a firearms offence does not have an identifiable victim as firearms offences are inherently potentially harmful. An additional complexity arises in a small number of serious gun crimes which carry a mandatory minimum sentence. When sentencing these offences, the court must also consider whether exceptional circumstances may justify the imposition of a sentence which falls below the statutory minimum. This report examines research and sentencing guidance relating to firearms offences. These offences include a range of crimes varying in seriousness, although most create a risk of serious harm or death. We conducted a literature review of the social and socio-legal databases to uncover relevant publications for the period 2000-2024. As will be seen, most of the scholarship in the area focuses on restricting access to firearms rather than punishing offenders convicted of firearms offences. Within the more restricted domain of sentencing, the majority of publications address mandatory sentencing as a response to gun crime. Most Western nations have introduced mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment for the more serious forms of gun crime. The project also conducted a review of the public opinion literature to seek any research exploring public knowledge of, and attitudes towards, sentencing for firearms offences. Understanding public opinion is recognised as a relevant consideration by sentencing commissions and councils around the world. 3. With respect to guidance, England and Wales is the only relevant comparator jurisdiction. While gun crime is a near-universal problem, differences in the definition of offences – and laws around gun ownership – makes it inappropriate to compare sentencing guidance or trends with the United States. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are more comparable countries, but none of these operate formal sentencing guidelines. Many of the firearms offences in Scotland also exist in England and Wales and stem from the same UK legislation. In addition, courts in England and Wales and Scotland also employ sentencing guidelines. These follow a similar step by step approach (albeit with important differences). For these reasons, we restrict our comparisons to England and Wales. Contents of the Volume Chapter 1 Firearms Offences: This chapter identifies the offences under consideration, including statistics on the prevalence of the offences, and summarises the current legal framework for sentencing these offences. Chapter 2 Firearms Offenders and Associated Offences: This chapter explores the connection between firearms offences and other violent crime. It addresses the way that the assessment of risk interacts with sentencing for firearms offences and the indicators of further or more serious offending (such as homicide). Finally, it discusses the background of offenders and the intersection between minority ethnic backgrounds and sentencing for firearms offences. Chapter 3 Sentencing Guidance for Firearms Offences: This chapter reviews the principles and purposes of the sentencing of firearms offences and also discusses the sentencing guidelines for firearms offences issued by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. Chapter 4 Research on Sentencing Responses to Firearms Offences: The final chapter summarises findings from research on the sentencing of firearms offences. The chapter also discusses the limited research exploring public attitudes to sentencing offenders convicted of firearms offences.

Edinburgh: Scottish Sentencing Council, 2025. 65p.

Chairman, Rt. Hon. David Gauke

This review of sentencing is tasked with a comprehensive re-evaluation of the sentencing framework in England and Wales, to ensure we are never again in a position where the country has more prisoners than prison places. This report – Part 1 of the Independent Sentencing Review’s conclusions – outlines the prison population challenge in figures, provides an explanation of why and how we got here, and advocates for an approach rooted in all statutory principles of sentencing and public service reform. Chapter one of this report examines trends in custody and the capacity pressures faced by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), which have brought the system dangerously close to collapse. At the end of 2024, over 85,000 individuals were held in the adult prison estate; these numbers undeniably exceed the population the system is designed to accommodate. The total prison population has grown by over 40,000 people since 1993, with adults sentenced for indictable offences now serving longer sentences. England and Wales also have one of the highest prison population rates in Western Europe. The probation service is similarly stretched: by September 2024, 240,497 individuals were under probation supervision, over 100,000 more than in 1993. Prison demand is expected to grow by an average of 3,000 people a year– the equivalent of building two large prisons per year. Without further government action, the prison population could reach up to 112,300 prisoners by November 2032.8 Chapter two summarises the drivers behind the increase in the use and length of custody. It concludes that the increase in the prison and probation population is not the consequence of a considered strategy as the most effective measure to reduce crime. Nor can it be explained by rising crime levels. In fact, latest estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) showed there has been an overall general decline in incidents of headline crime since 2017. The increase has been the result of many decisions made by successive governments and a “tough on crime” narrative that has focused primarily on punishment – understood as incarceration and longer sentences – on occasion responding to embedded misunderstandings about sentencing and high-profile individual cases. In tandem, there has been an underinvestment in probation and other alternatives that can provide rehabilitation and reduce reoffending. Chapter three outlines the need for change, and advocates for a system rooted in all the current statutory principles of sentencing. The emphasis on longer-term imprisonment has placed significant strain on the system, forcing successive governments to adopt costly and high-risk emergency measures. These have attempted to both increase short-term capacity (often in ways which are expensive and risky) and reduce demand by expediting the release of prisoners, such as the measures we saw in the autumn of 2024 when prisoners were released 40 per cent (as opposed to 50 per cent) of the way through their sentence. This incoherent approach also comes at a fiscal cost: new prison programmes are estimated to cost between £9.4 billion and £10.1 billion.10 The piecemeal and unstrategic manner in which sentence lengths have increased in recent decades has meant that there has been insufficient consideration of all of the statutory aims of sentencing: punishment, crime reduction, reform and rehabilitation, public protection and reparation. Punishment is an important aim for the criminal justice system and prison plays a vital role in delivering punishment. But too often decision making has been based on an approach that punishment is all that matters, and that the only form of punishment that counts is imprisonment.

Rather than approach sentencing policy based on the evidence of what is likely to be most effective in reducing crime and reducing reoffending, too often the knee-jerk response has been to increase sentence lengths as a demonstration of government action.

London: Miniarey od Juarixw2025. 65p.

By Ben Finholt

For decades, the North Carolina Supreme Court—like many other state supreme courts—largely ignored its own state constitution’s ban on harsh criminal punishments and deferred entirely to federal case law on the constitutional limits of excessive sentences. The result has been near-total deference to the state legislature and a discriminatory mass incarceration crisis that has ballooned without meaningful constitutional checks.

This approach has been a serious mistake of constitutional law. As Justice Harry Martin once noted, “the Constitution of North Carolina . . . is the people's timeless shield against encroachment on their civil rights,” and it provides uniquely broad protections of civil rights and personal liberty. Yet sentencing law has been the exception, despite a specific provision that bans “cruel or unusual punishments,” and whose text and original meaning are distinct from the Eighth Amendment.

The North Carolina Supreme Court finally revived this clause, Article I, Section 27, in two recent cases involving children sentenced to serve decades, recognizing that it should not be interpreted in lockstep with its federal counterpart. This Article argues that these cases provide a crucial moment of doctrinal clarity and opportunity to articulate the independent meaning of Section 27 and unleash its power as an essential tool in the urgent project of dismantling mass incarceration. While previous scholarship has noted that state analogs to th

e Eighth Amendment can and should bear their own independent meaning, this Article provides a full analysis of Section 27 specifically, looking to its text and history, related constitutional provisions, and other factors to show that it provides broader protections against excessive punishments than does current Eighth Amendment case law. This Article also sketches a doctrinal framework that state courts can apply in all challenges to excessive punishment, not just those involving children.

Finally, the Article places this constitutional analysis in the specific context of North Carolina’s criminal legal system, explaining how other mechanisms of reducing needless incarceration have proven wholly inadequate.

Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2023, 49p.

By Rachel Monaghan and Bianca Slocombe 

  : Few studies have examined the sentencing outcomes of individuals convicted of terrorism or violent extremism-related offences in the United Kingdom (UK). Home Office data can tell us the number of persons arrested for terrorist-related activity and subsequent outcomes, such as charges and convictions by legislation, but this data does not provide a complete picture of the prosecution landscape for extremist actors in the UK. This is due in part to the existence of three distinct legal jurisdictions (England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) and also to differences in the types of data collected and counting practices in operation. Moreover, the official data available publicly are only summary statistics, with no separate data for Scotland. This article addresses this research gap in our knowledge of the prosecution landscape for extremist actors in the UK by utilising data from an original dataset compiled by the research team from open sources on the sentencing outcomes of individuals (n=809) convicted of terrorism, terrorism-related, and violent extremism offences over a 21- year period (April 2001-March 2022). The analysis of this dataset has allowed us to test a range of hypotheses in relation to not only motivation but also offence type, gender, age, co-defendants and having multiple counts (i.e. facing multiple charges). Limitations of the study are also discussed.  

Perspectives on Terrorism, Volume XVIII, Issue 4 December 2024  

By The Council on Criminal Justice

As cities across the nation grapple with effective responses to increases in violent crime, a task force co-chaired by former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy today released a report outlining a comprehensive approach for the use of lengthy prison sentences in the United States.

The report, How Long is Long Enough?, presents 14 recommendations to enhance judicial discretion in sentencing, promote individual and system accountability, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, better serve victims of crime, and increase public safety. Defining long sentences as prison terms of 10 years or longer, the panel’s proposals include:

Shifting savings from reductions in the use of long prison sentences to programs that prevent violence and address the trauma it causes individuals, families, and communities (Recommendation 1).

Allowing judges to consider all relevant facts and circumstances when imposing a long sentence, and requiring that sentencing enhancements based on criminal history are driven by individualized assessments of risk and other factors (Recommendations 6 and 8)

Providing selective “second look” sentence review opportunities and expanding access to sentence-reduction credits (Recommendations 11 and 12)

Focusing penalties in drug cases on a person’s role in a trafficking organization, rather than the amount of drug involved, (Recommendation 7)

Reducing recidivism by providing behavioral health services and other rehabilitative living conditions and opportunities in prison (Recommendations 3 and 13)

Strengthening services for all crime victims and survivors by enforcing victims’ rights, removing barriers to services, and creating restorative justice opportunities (Recommendations 2, 4, and 9)

“Some may wonder, why would we even discuss the nation’s use of long prison sentences now, amid a rise in homicide rates and legitimate public concern about public safety? Because this is exactly the time to examine what will actually make our communities safer and our system more just,” Yates and Gowdy said in a joint statement accompanying the report. “When crime rates increase, so do calls for stiffer sentencing, often without regard to the effectiveness or fairness of those sentences. Criminal justice policy should be based on facts and evidence, not rhetoric and emotion, and we should be laser-focused on strategies that make the most effective use of our limited resources.”

The report is the product of a year-long analysis by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) Task Force on Long Sentences, which includes 16 members representing a broad range of experience and perspectives, from crime victims and survivors to formerly incarcerated people, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, courts, and corrections. The panel examined the effects of long sentences on the criminal justice system and the populations it serves, including victims as well as people in prison, their families, and correctional staff.

Drawing on sentencing data and research, including a series of reports prepared for the Task Force, the sweeping recommendations offer a comprehensive blueprint for action on a complex and polarizing topic. According to an updated analysis by CCJ, 63% of people in state prison in 2020 were serving a sentence of 10 or more years, up from 46% in 2005, a shift due largely to a decline in people serving shorter terms. During the same period, the gap between Black and White people receiving long terms widened, from half a percentage point to 4 percentage points. Though murder defendants were the most likely to receive a long sentence, drug offenses accounted for the largest share (20%) of those admitted to prison to serve 10 or more years.

“Our nation’s reliance on long sentences as a response to violence requires us to wrestle with highly challenging questions about the relationship between crime, punishment, and public safety,” Task Force Director John Maki said. “Through their painstaking deliberations, our members rose to the challenge and produced a set of recommendations that recognize our need to advance public safety while respecting the humanity of those most affected by long prison terms.”

Washington DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2023. 39p.