Karen Harrison, Dangerousness, risk and the governance of serious sexual and violent offenders
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865815587069 |
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| Author | Kris Gledhill |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Tom O’Malley looks at the example of the Irish Republic and questions the ability of
progressive legal systems to live without guidelines. O’Malley cautions against an abrupt
transition from barely constrained discretion to a system of guidelines. Cyrus Tata uses
Scotland to analyse whether English and Welsh guidelines will spread and raises the
interesting idea that only a threat to the judicial ownership of sentencing will prompt
change.
Warren Young and Andrea King authored The Origins and Evolution of Sentencing
Guidelines: A Comparison of England and Wales and New Zealand which offers an in abstracto
assessment of the effectiveness of, and comparison to, a sentencing system that is not yet
operational. Equally interesting is the contribution from Kevin R. Reitz, who questions
whether the US Systems Have Anything Worthwhile to Offer England and Wales? In stark
contrast to England, the US sentencing system has been used to ensure consistency in out-
comes, and in particular to control prison populations. Even so, Reitz details some interesting
similarities in shifts in culture, including the view that sentencing decisions are more momen-
tous and more deserving of argument and deliberation than in the pre-guidelines era.
While the international dimension within a number of chapters adds to the richness of
the collection, their presence in this volume does little to further exploration of the
English Model. Any added value from the international dimension comes from the
ability for the contribution to spark thought and seed ideas and suggestions on how
England and Wales can further strengthen their guidelines.
Other chapter contributions include Neil Hutton’s understandings of the performance
of justice in the guideline on assault, Ian Edwards on Victims and John Cooper on
personal mitigation in sentencing. Julian Roberts authors the essay on compliance
with sentencing guidelines and co-authors with Hannah Maslen on the impact of
remorse. The volume draws to a close with an almost mandatory chapter on the
impact of the European Union by Estella Baker.
Sentencing may not be one of the most glamorous parts of the criminal justice system,
however this collection highlights its varied nature and dynamic operation. The volume
draws together fascinating insights into sentencing, and is, as the cover suggests, of
interest to ‘‘academics from law, sociology and criminology, legal practitioners and
indeed anyone else with an interest in sentencing, around the world.’’
Karen Harrison, Dangerousness, risk and the governance of serious sexual and violent offenders.
Routledge: Abingdon, 2011; 272 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-66862-0, £26.99 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Kris Gledhill, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, New Zealand
The New Zealand Parliament has decided that it will join the trend of making use of
preventive detention for those who are viewed as posing an unacceptably high risk of
further sexual or violent offending, authorising further detention after any prison sen-
tence has been served. The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Act 2014 became
law on 11 December 2014. It joins similar legislation in various Australian and North
American jurisdictions. It is not new: in the 1930s, the USA enacted a raft of ‘sexual
psychopath legislation’ (Cornwell, 1996); and Australian legislation aimed at locking up
the risky goes back to the Bushranging Acts of the 1830s (McSherry, 2014).
Book Reviews 591
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