Sentencing and Sanctions in Western Countries

Abstract This collection of original essays surveys the evolution of sentencing policies and practices in Western countries over the past twenty-five years. The volume consists of approximately ten essays. Six consider sentencing policy strategies and practices in major western countries, including Australia, England/Wales, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Each is written by a recognized expert from that part of the world. The remaining essays consider developments and subjects that cross national boundaries. Just a few of the subjects touched upon include plea-bargaining, community service and electronic monitoring, standards of use of incarceration, and legal perspectives on sentencing policy developments in western countries. The goal of the book is to provide a range of scholars and students better cross-national knowledge than currently exists of how various countries’ sentencing laws and practices differ, when and why they have changed over time, and with what effects. Increasingly, countries are likely to look across nation boundaries for boundaries for solutions to pressing sentencing-policy problems. There exists, however, no scholarly literature on the subject.