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Empirical Sentencing Research: Options and Opportunities

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Exploring Sentencing Practice in England and Wales

Abstract

What do we know about the practice of sentencing in England and Wales? The answer, until relatively recently, was not very much. The explanation for this lack of knowledge lies primarily in the limited statistics and sporadic research record. Although empirical studies have been conducted for many decades now (e.g., Hood, 1962; 1972; 1992), over the decade between 1995 and 2005, only a handful of major empirical studies of sentencing were conducted (e.g., Tarling, 2006; Mason et al., 2007; Flood-Page and Mackie, 1998; Hough et al., 2003; for discussion and reviews of earlier empirical research in sentencing, see Ashworth, 2003; Roberts, 1988; Blumstein et al, 1983).

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Authors
  1. Julian V. Roberts
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  2. Mike Hough
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, UK

    Julian V. Roberts (Professor of Criminology) (Professor of Criminology)

Copyright information

© 2015 Julian V. Roberts and Mike Hough

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Roberts, J.V., Hough, M. (2015). Empirical Sentencing Research: Options and Opportunities. In: Roberts, J.V. (eds) Exploring Sentencing Practice in England and Wales. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137390400_1

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