Retributive Sentencing, Multiple Offenders, and Bulk Discounts

Abstract

This paper concerns how retributive sentencing theory would have us sentence individuals who have been convicted of multiple offenses. A purely consecutive approach to sentencing would have multiple offenders serve the sentences for their crimes one right after the other, with no "bulk discounts." A purely concurrent approach would have multiple offenders serve only the sentence for their most serious offense. This would, in effect, grant multiple offenders substantial bulk discounts. I argue that neither approach is satisfactory and defend a moderate consecutivism, according to which multiple offenders should receive bulk discounts but should have to serve longer sentences than purely concurrent approaches would require of them. I then illustrate my proposal by considering different kinds of multiple offenders.

Keywords: retributivism, sentencing, multiple offenders, bulk discounts