ABSTRACT
Introduction At the heart of the justice process, in cases where guilt is established, there is a system of imposing punishments. This is the sentencing system, and despite this deceptively simple description it plays a number of not always compatible roles: punishment, rehabilitation, retribution and deterrence, among others. We dealt with these differing theories of punishment in some detail in Chapter 23. Here we focus more particularly on the sentencing process in England and Wales, and how sentencing policy and practice has been changing in recent decades.
