Sentencing: A study in the proper allocation of responsibilit

Assuming that the standard mode of control over antisocial behaviour in society is the imposition of punishment, this thesis commences with an analysis of the "traditional theories" of punishment. It assesses the nature and justification of the use of the criminal sanction.;The thesis continues with an examination of the main characteristic processes through which the criminal sanction operates in the entire administration of criminal justice system. What is the best allocation of competences to make decisions about sentencing? And how efficiently could these competencies be distributed among the legislation, the judiciary and the correctional agencies? Whose role is it to identify in a legally acceptable manner persons who should be subjected to sanction, control and treatment in the correctional process? By what criteria is this decision of identification reached? A comparative evaluation is made of the Model Penal Code and the Model Sentencing Act in this regard with a view to constructing the basis for a Canadian model.;The thesis discusses why the criminal sanction is currently the main available device society has at its disposal to deal with the crimes and threats of harm. The enormously expensive and clumsy machinery of imprisonment is today relied on excessively in spite of evidence to indicate that its use could and indeed should be drastically curtailed with great advantage in terms of financial, social and human costs. It submits that the far too indiscriminate way in which society has resorted to the criminal sanction has weakened some of the important bases upon which its very efficiency rests to the extent that it even threatens social values that far transcend the prevention of crime. Through the criminal sanction we continue to alienate people from the society in which they live. We have similarly driven enforcement agencies to resort to extreme measures of intrusion and coercion.;Given this fact, the possibility of recourse to alternative sanctions is explored in this thesis. It would appear that he probable answer may lie in non-institutional measures such as the increased use of probation, suspended sentences, fines and more importantly, community-based correctional facilities and parole.;The thesis concludes with the suggestion that in the search for more viable alternatives greater emphasis should be placed on the necessity to innovate major changes in the total criminal justice process as against the background of rapidly changing social and behavioural problems. In order to better understand the problem of crime prevention the intricacy of the total process of causation must be recognized. Too often preventive measures are based on narrow monocausal explanations which over-simplify the etiology of crime. This weakness of approach to the crime prevention problem is revealed under the severe test of the high rate of recidivism. Indeed, because the system of criminal justice reflects the organization and culture of the total society, penal reform must be related to social reform. Indeed, the criminal justice process cannot continue to function in isolation from the more affirmative social programs for improving individual lives. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).