ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the extent to which individual prevention was taken into account with choice of sanction and presents a systematic analysis of the offenders' personal and social circumstances. Clearly judges have taken the offenders' upbringing, previous offenses, alcohol misuse and employment circumstances into consideration when choosing the sanction. The judges have followed the legislator's intentions inasmuch as the CS-offenders have better social prognoses and probationers' poorer ones in terms of social and personal circumstances. To ascertain the extent to which judges take account of factors other than the offense when sentencing means controlling for the effects of the nature and seriousness of the offense. The judges' impose conditional sentence, probation and probation with institutional treatment in direct relation to the defendants' increasing degree of social handicap and criminality. Since the social and criminal factors are so closely linked and differentiate the sanction groups in a similar way a methodological problem arises in separating out the different types of factors.