The Courtroom Experience
The United States government has formulated guidelines to offer proportional sentencing in federal courts that were meant to ensure that lawbreakers were sentenced fairly. However, there are many cases when sentences vary from one court to another. This problem has emerged due to several reasons. One of the reasons is the varying organizational contexts in the courtrooms. Research has found out that those being prosecuted in large courts will be granted downward departures, in most cases, while the ones in the smaller courts will receive upward departures. Other problems that have led to a lack of proportionality are the jail capacity available in a certain state, the caseload of the court, and the social status of those being sentenced. These problems could be reduced by putting in place mechanisms that ensure courts have manageable caseloads, and courtroom communities are sensitized on fair sentencing of all people. The lack of proportional sentencing is also an urgent issue in the United Kingdom. For instance, a wealthy person breaks the traffic rules by overspeeding. When such a wealthy offender is taken to a federal court of law, he is not fined the same amount of money as another person who has broken the same traffic rules but lives below the poverty line. Another case is people, who were found driving expensive cars, are fined up to 1000 pounds for a delay in car insurance renewal while those with cheap ones pay three hundred pounds only. This problem of disproportional sentencing has been caused by the sentencing framework used in the courts. The sentencing framework was laid out and enacted through the criminal Justice Act of 1991. Under this act, sentences are based on offenders’ culpability and the magnitude of their misdeeds. The problem created by this Act was that sometimes it becomes difficult to measure the culpability of the offenders. This leads to difficulties in determining the penalty which is in accordance with the law. The solution to problems created by the criminal justice Act of 1991 would be to introduce an Ordinal proportionality approach in the United Kingdom’s justice system. Under this approach, persons should receive equal punishments if they make offenses of the same seriousness.
Mary Violet is a diligent student. She likes active recreation. In her free time, she works as a personal letter writer at https://essay-online-shop.com/article/personal-letter-writing-service/ This service hires only expert writers for custom essay writing