ABSTRACT
The vast majority of sentences imposed by courts in England and Wales are imposed by magistrates' courts. Crown Courts get their business through the magistrates' courts. Many criminologists have looked at variations in sentencing practice. It is obvious that people are typically punished because they have committed crimes. Punishments are responses to crimes. Society takes what actions it chooses in defence of itself against criminal depredations. There is a relationship between being unemployed and committing crime. Over and above that, there is a putative relationship between being unemployed and being sentenced severely. Modelling of the determinants of crime variation is defensible. It can aid the allocation of criminal justice resources and the planning of places and social arrangements in ways which are less criminogenic. Punishment policy choices have consequences for rates of crime, and the analysis of individual careers is already providing data which can inform punishment choices.
