Proportionate Sentencing: Exploring the Principles by Andrew von Hirsch and Andrew Ashworth (eds)
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00668_4.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Author | Matt Matravers |
The ¢nal part of Murray’s book, headed ‘Regulating cyberspace: challenges
and opportunit ies’, might be seen as embl ematic for the book as a whole.
Here, after all, is a story about the way in which the regulatory challenge pre-
sented by the Internet ca n be taken forward as an opportunity to develop a more
sophisticated appreciation of, and approach to, complex environments. Some
might think that this over-states the signi¢cance of cyberspace ^ for example,
Goldsmith andWu argue that, in the fullness of time, we will come to see cyber-
space as just another space (like airspace or land) over which the superpowers
(especial ly, the US, Europe, and Chi na) sought to exert control. And, some,
myself included, might think that Murray is correct but that the way in which
the State appropriates new technologies for the purposes of social control is not
necessarily th eway in which we want to see challenges turned i nto opportunities.
No matter^ Murray tells a good story (indeed, several good stories) and, ata time
when there are a number of very good books about in this area, this is one that is
to be highly recommended.
Roger Brownsword
n
AndrewvonHirschandAndrewAshworth(eds), Proportionate Sentencing:
Exploring the Principles, xii 238 pp, hb d50.00, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005
As von Hirsch and Ashworth note, the proportional ist (or just-deserts) model of
sentencing has been in£uential in both theoryand practice in the last quarter of a
centuryor so (p 1).The aim of this book ismodestly describedas being an explora-
tion of the‘borderlands’ of deserttheory: its application to‘certain kinds of impor-
tant special cases’, and its relationship to ‘other conceptions of sentencing with
which it seems to have some elements in common’ (p 2).
The‘specialcases’ considered are juvenile o¡enders, dangerous o¡enders, o¡en-
ders from socially deprived backgrounds, and o¡enders for whom some kind of
compassion is sometimes felt appropriate (such as the old and in¢rm, those who
committed the crime in the distant past, and those who have tried to make
amends for the harm that they have done). Each of these topics gets a chapter (in
the case of the last, an appendix to indicate the ‘tentative and exploratory’nature of
the remarks).
In brief, von Hirsch and Ashworth argue that a desert model can underwrite
reduced penalt ies for juve niles; that, if stretched, it could ^ but sh ould not ^ accom-
modateextracon¢nementforthedangerous;thatitisdebatablewhetheritshould
make special provision for the social ly deprived; and that it can make room for
compassion in some cases. Merely listing the conclusions, though, does not do jus-
tice to the subtlety and importa nce of the discussio ns that underpin them and these
chapters can be recommended to everyone interested in these topics.
It is in examining the relationship of the propor tionalist model to other the -
ories of punishment and se ntencing that manyof the most interesting features of
n
Faculty of Law,King’s College, London.
Reviews
883
r2007 The Authors.Journal Compilation r2007 The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2007) 70(5)MLR 872^886
To continue reading
Request your trial