Public Interest in Sentencing: Deterrence or Desert or Anything Else
27 Pages Posted: 20 Oct 2009
Abstract
The notion of public interest in sentencing conjures up images of utilitarian consequentialism and the emergence in Singapore of a role for public interests analysis in sentencing may create a superficial impression of judicial hardening and the beginnings of a new and repressive law and order ideology. This article demonstrates that the impression is not only superficial but also false. Its central argument is that public interests analysis is or has the potential to contribute clarity and add value to desert-based sentencing and that taken together with judicial benchmarking, which it complements, reflects a model of desert, which is neither deontological nor empirical. Nevertheless, the resultant model is not necessarily inferior to either.
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