Determination of Starting Sentences in Israel - System and Application
27 Pages Posted: 27 Jun 2010 Last revised: 25 Mar 2019
Date Written: June 24, 2010
Abstract
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 law so that they would take effect with the amendment while allowing the newly created Starting Sentences Committee to amend these starting sentences at a later stage. The authors proposed starting sentences for robbery, burglary, and aiding illegal aliens and submitted the study to the Knesset. The details of the bill are currently being debated in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset, in preparation for second and third reading.
The following article is an excerpted English translation of the general part of the study, which was published in Hebrew on the Knesset Website, and of the proposed starting sentence for robbery.
Keywords: Sentencing Guidelines, Sentencing Reform, Israel
JEL Classification: K14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation