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Equality Before the Law and Equal Impact of Sanctions: Doing Justice to Differences in Wealth and Employment Status

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posted on 2023-05-22, 13:46 authored by Catherine WarnerCatherine Warner
The principle of equality before the law requires that sentencing decisions should treat offenders equally irrespective of wealth, race, colour, sex, employment, or social status; and the principle of equal impact requires that sentences should be calibrated to create an equal penal impact on offenders subject to them. Like cases should be treated alike and different cases differently. However, sentencing law has grappled with the problem of which differences are to be considered relevant, while theorists have debated about how the principles of equality before the law and equal impact can be accommodated within retributive or consequential theories and reconciled with the principle of parsimony and issues of efficiency in the administration of criminal justice.

History

Publication title

Principles and Values in Criminal Justice: Essays in Honour of Andrew Ashworth

Editors

L Zedner and JV Roberts

Pagination

225-243

ISBN

9780199696796

Department/School

Faculty of Law

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Place of publication

Oxford

Extent

18

Rights statement

Copyright 2012 Oxford University Press

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Criminal justice

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