NCJ Number
155941
Date Published
1995
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This report describes a project that enabled judges from countries in Europe and North America with widely differing legal systems to meet each other and discuss their work, particularly how they approached the sentencing of adult offenders.
Abstract
The project organized seven seminars held from 1989 to 1994 that included discussions and sentencing exercises based on actual cases that had come before the courts. The project also organized two series of short evening seminars and published briefing papers and reports on the seminars. Participants came from Canada, Denmark, England and Wales, France, the Netherlands, Scotland, West Germany, and the United States. The discussions revealed that the general range of sentences available to the judges included fines, restitution, probation or supervision, community service orders, driver's license suspension, suspended or partially suspended custodial sentences, and intermediate imprisonment. Judges from Europe and Canada were alarmed by the severity of the sentences imposed by the United States judges, the existence of mandatory minimum sentences in the United States, and the resulting limits on judicial discretion. The discussions raised general issues about the relationship between the judiciary and other policymakers and about the possible need for judges to find better ways of formulating and putting forward a collective view.