NCJ Number
96228
Date Published
1984
Length
74 pages
Annotation
This document complements Canada's sentencing reform legislative proposals by setting them within the broader context of considerations and factors which led the Government to propose them and explains the detailed sentencing proposals to facilitate understanding their meaning and intended impact.
Abstract
Canada's proposed sentencing reforms are based on the goals of the Criminal Law Review as a whole: to establish and maintain public confidence in an effective, equitable, credible, and understandable criminal law and criminal justice system; and to legislate a more coherent, flexible, and clear Criminal Code. Sentencing issues -- effectiveness equity, and clarity -- relate directly to public concern about sentencing and criminal law and provide a framework against which the proposals for reform may be measured. The range of sanctions the legislation proposes is rationalized, clarified, and expanded. The role and needs of crime victims are given clear recognition and emphasis. Tough new sentencing alternatives make it possible to deal effectively with offenders without having to resort to imprisonment when that is not necessary. In addition to imprisonment, other sanctions encompassed by the legislation are absolute and conditional discharges, conditional sentence, probation, restitution, forfeiture, fines, community service orders, and intermittent sentences. Particularly brutal and violent offenders are to be dealt with severely through a fundamental reorientation of the current provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with dangerous offenders. Rules of evidence and procedure are enunciated to give the courts the powers and information required to determine an appropriate, fair, and effective sentence.