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Foreword: A Global Perspective On Sentencing Reforms, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Foreword: A Global Perspective On Sentencing Reforms, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Oren Gazal-Ayal
The articles published in this issue of Law and Contemporary Problems examine the effects of different sentencing reforms across the world. While the effects of sentencing reforms in the United States have been studied extensively, this is the first symposium that examines the effects of sentencing guidelines and alternative policies in a number of western legal systems from a comparative perspective. This issue focuses on how different sentencing policies affect prison population rates, sentence disparity, and the balance of power between the judiciary and prosecutors, while also assessing how sentencing policies respond to temporary punitive surges and moral panics. The …
Do Sentencing Guidelines Increase Prosecutorial Power? An Empirical Study, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Hagit Turjeman, Gideon Fishman
Do Sentencing Guidelines Increase Prosecutorial Power? An Empirical Study, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Hagit Turjeman, Gideon Fishman
Oren Gazal-Ayal
Traditionally, judges have had tremendous flexibility in sentencing. Offering judges maximum discretion in the sentencing process allows them to consider not only an offender’s criminal history and the severity of the crime committed, but also the complex web of mitigating and aggravating factors present in each case and additional qualitative factors, such as a defendant’s testimony or selfpresentation in a courtroom. When judges are empowered with more discretion, however, there is heightened potential for inter-judge variability in sentencing. In order to reduce sentencing disparities caused by individual sentencers, several countries and jurisdictions, most notably in the United States, have enacted …
Determination Of Starting Sentences In Israel—System And Application, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Ruth Kannai
Determination Of Starting Sentences In Israel—System And Application, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Ruth Kannai
Oren Gazal-Ayal
The Israeli Penal Law Bill (Amendment No. 92, Structuring Judicial Discretion in Sentencing) 5766-2006 proposes that a committee be set up to establish sentences that will serve as starting points for judges in their sentencing deliberation (starting sentences). The Israeli Minister of Justice asked the authors to propose starting sentences for three prevalent serious offences in order to show the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) the methodology of determining such starting sentences and to help facilitate the debate about the consequences of these new guidelines. The ministers intended the Knesset to legislate these proposed starting sentences in the appendix to the …