Sentence Disparity
What is sentence disparity? This term means that the judge does not hand out the same sentence, or the terms of the sentence, when convicting criminals who commit the same crimes. There are numerous factors that assist the judge when they administer a sentence to the offender. ... “There is an apparent disparity in the sentences awarded for similar crimes committed by similar offenders in similar circumstances. ... The punishment for this type of offence is clearly a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, which is twenty-five years. In reviewing these cases, there is without a doubt some disparity when it boils down to the eligibility for parole for the offenders. ... The judge also stated that he did not think that “people are deterred from repeating this kind of crime by the fact that a longer period of parole ineligibility than ten years has been added to their life sentence. ... There is definitely a sense of disparity in the judge’s sentencing with regards to these two cases. ... However, I do not feel that there was any disparity of any kind, primarily because there were no mitigating factors in the Perkin’s case like there were in the Dean’s case. ... For example, the maximum prison sentences that comply with the Criminal Code offence are usually higher than the “actual average sentence for the crime that they cannot be said to provide real guidance on sentencing.”5 Second, disparity is clearly visible for similar crimes being committed by similar offenders. There have been some studies done in Canada on disparity within the courts, and as quoted by Professor John Adams, “Canada displays a marked absence of uniformity in the principles of sentencing. ... These three problems are interrelated, since the absence of clear policy with sentencing may both motivate disparity and demonstrate the lack of clearly successful sentencing alternatives. ... In conclusion, for most of the cases that I studied throughout this paper, the judge does not hand out the same sentence or the terms of the sentence when convicting criminals who commit the same crime. There is definitely “an apparent disparity in the sentences awarded for similar crimes committed by similar offenders in similar circumstances.