Julian V Roberts
Biographic Data
| ID | 118985 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julian V Roberts |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julian V |
| FAMILY NAME | Roberts |
| SIGNATURE | ROBERTS J V |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ottawa |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 127 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
From Principles to Populism: Sentencing in England and Wales
The creation of sentencing councils and the introduction of guidelines have made sentencing in the United Kingdom more transparent, predictable, and democratic. The systems in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland share common elements, but important differences exist. Those in England and Wales are the most comprehensive. They are largely descriptive, reproducing rather than changing judicial practice, and have failed to prevent thre…
Sentencing Guidelines and Commissions: Comparative Perspectives
Sentencing Reform in Tanzania: Moving from Uhuru to Ubuntu
The scholarly literature on sentencing reform has largely overlooked the African continent. The paucity of legal scholarship is particularly striking with respect to Tanzania, one of Africa's largest and most populous countries. This article explores the first significant sentencing reform in Tanzania's history. In 2020, the Tanzanian judiciary issued a comprehensive set of sentencing guidelines for courts to follow. Until this point, sentencing …
Sentencing Members of Minority Groups: Problems and Prospects for Improvement in Four Countries
Members of racial, ethnic, and Indigenous minorities have long accounted for disproportionate percentages of prison admissions in Western nations and of prison populations. The minorities affected vary between countries. Discriminatory or differential treatment by criminal justice officials from policing through to parole is part of the problem. Much media and professional attention focuses on sentencing, where the decision-making is most public.…
Paying for the Past: The Case Against Prior Record Sentence Enhancements
Virtually all modern sentencing systems consider the offender’s prior record to be an important determinant of the form and severity of punishment, often carrying more weight than the crime being sentenced. Repeat offenders “pay for their past,” even though they have already been punished for their prior crimes. And the majority of sentenced offenders have at least one prior conviction. This topic thus lies at the heart of the sentencing process;…
Predictive Sentencing: Normative and Empirical Perspectives
"Predictive Sentencing addresses the role of risk assessment in contemporary sentencing practices. Predictive sentencing has become so deeply ingrained in Western criminal justice decision-making that despite early ethical discussions about selective incapacitation, it currently attracts little critique. Nor has it been subjected to a thorough normative and empirical scrutiny. This is problematic since much current policy and practice concerning …
The Evolution of Sentencing Guidelines in Minnesota and England and Wales
Sentencing guidelines were an exclusively American enterprise until recently. Since 2004, however, other countries have joined in. Contrasting approaches are exemplified by systems developed by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission and the Sentencing Council of England and Wales. Minnesota’s guidelines are set out in grids that categorize cases by offense and criminal history. Each cell sets out ranges of sentences that are presumed to b…
Does the Crown Court Discriminate Against Muslim-named Offenders? a Novel Investigation Based on Text Mining Techniques
Most research in sentencing discrimination in the United Kingdom has relied on aggregate analyses comparing disparities by ethnic group. These studies fail to consider differences in the individual characteristics of the cases processed. To circumvent the lack of official data, we scraped sentence records stored in a commercial website, from which a sample of 8,437 offenders sentenced to custody in the Crown Court from 2007 to 2017 was generated.…
Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice
Taking on one of the most popular issues of the day—crime and the way we make sense of it—Julian Roberts and Loretta Stalans reveal the mismatch between the public perception of crime and the reality of crime statistics. Discussing such issues as public knowledge of crime, sources of crime information, information processing by the public, public attitudes about crime, and the effectiveness of punishment, this book considers the role that public …
Prior Record Enhancements at Sentencing: Unsettled Justifications and Unsettling Consequences
The consequences of a person’s prior crimes remain after the debt to society is paid and the sentence is discharged. While the practice of using prior convictions to enhance the severity of sentence imposed is universal, prior record enhancements (PREs) play a particularly important role in US sentencing, and especially in guidelines jurisdictions. In grid-based guidelines, criminal history constitutes one of the two dimensions of the grid. The e…
Sentencing the Multiple-Conviction Offender
This chapter focuses on the punishment of offenders sentenced for multiple offenses that have not been separated by independent prosecution and sentencing. Most scholars believe that the striking discrepancy between sentences imposed on multiple and repeat offenders cannot be justified in terms of retributivism. The existing solutions to the overpunishment of offenders convicted of multiple crimes invoke concurrent sentencing or the exercise of m…
Public opinion, crime, and criminal justice
This chapter summarizes research on public opinion about crime and criminal justice in developed industrialized societies. It starts with an assessment of what can be said about public knowledge about crime, documenting widespread misperceptions about the nature of crime, about crime trends, and about the criminal justice response to crime. It then considers public attitudes towards crime and justice, which tend to be largely negative. The chapte…
Sentencing for Multiple Crimes
Most people assume that criminal offenders have only been convicted of a single crime. However, in reality almost half of offenders stand to be sentenced for more than one crime. The high proportion of multiple-crime offenders poses a number of practical and theoretical challenges for the criminal justice system. For instance, how should courts punish multiple offenders relative to individuals who have been sentenced for a single crime? Should a …
Exploring an Institutionalist and Post-Desert Theoretical Approach to Multiple-Offense Sentencing
This chapter begins with a discussion of Neil MacCormick’s institutionalist approach to legal phenomena, and argues that this theoretical framework has value as a way to study multiple offense sentencing (MOS). The most thorough completed empirical research into MOS, by Austin Lovegrove in Victoria, Australia, is then considered, alongside the leading Victorian case of Azzopardi v. R . Congruently with the expectations of institutionalism, this a…
A Measure of Tolerance: Public Attitudes on Sentencing Enhancements for Old and Juvenile Prior Records
Sentencing policies routinely assign harsher punishment on repeat offenders, yet we know little about public attitudes toward recidivist sentencing premiums—beyond the predictable finding that people are more punitive when the offender is a recidivist. We conducted a survey to explore public reaction to two key inquiries: (1) whether older priors should carry less weight at new sentencing hearings and (2) whether juvenile priors should be counted…
Reducing female admissions to custody: Exploring the options at sentencing
Although women represent a small minority of the prison population in all nations, it has long been a concern that custody is overused with respect to female offenders. Reducing the number of women in prison has therefore emerged as a policy priority in many western nations, including the United Kingdom. This article evaluates a range of sentencing strategies to reduce the number of women in prison, on the grounds that their experience of the san…
The Evolution of Sentencing Policy and Practice in England and Wales, 2003–2015
Sentencing in England and Wales has evolved in a direction apart from other common law countries. Although sentencing problems found in many Western nations are present, legislative and judicial responses have been very different. The use of custody rose steeply in the 1990s and has remained stable around that level in recent years. Crimes of violence and sexual aggression have, however, attracted increasingly longer sentences. The other principa…
Paying for the Past
Exploring Sentencing Practice in England and Wales
This volume explores the theory and practice of sentencing in England and Wales, exploring issues such as the role of previous convictions, offender remorse and sentencing female offenders, as well as
Democratising punishment: Sentencing, community views and values
This essay explores and critiques a theory of criminal justice which privileges the role of public intuitions about punishment over more traditional influences on sentencing principles and practice. This movement may be termed ‘Democratising Punishment’ and it has important consequences for sentencing in all jurisdictions. Several recent books advocate reforms such as deriving sentencing principles from public opinion research or sentencing by ju…
Sentencing Guidelines: Exploring the English Model
This volume is the first devoted to exploring the definitive sentencing guidelines in England and Wales. Although there is a vast literature on sentencing guidelines across the United States, the English guidelines have attracted almost no attention from scholars. The book will be of interest to many countries since the English guidelines represent the only alternative to the US schemes. A number of other jurisdictions have expressed a desire to …
Crime Victims, Sentencing, and Release from Prison
Victim personal statements in England and Wales: Latest (and last) trends from the Witness and Victim Experience Survey
Crime victims and victims’ advocates have for many years called for greater input into the criminal process, and in particular at the stage of sentencing. Today, victims in almost all common law countries have the opportunity to participate in the sentencing process, usually by providing information about the impact of the crime. This impact evidence is placed before a sentencing court in the form of a victim impact statement (VIS) or victim pers…
Structured sentencing: Lessons from England and Wales for common law jurisdictions
Sentencing guidelines have been slowly evolving in England and Wales since 1998. Definitive guidelines now exist for all common offences. This jurisdiction is the only one outside the United States to develop formal, numerical guidelines which are presumptively binding on courts. Despite their unique status – as the only alternative to the grid-based schemes found in many US states – the English guidelines have attracted almost no attention from …
Custody or community? Exploring the boundaries of public punitiveness in England and Wales
Determining the factors which make a difference between a custodial sentence and a community penalty is one of the most challenging decisions for sentencers. Little research to date has explored the nature of public reaction to mitigating factors and the circumstances which may justify imposition of a community penalty even though the custodial threshold has been crossed. This article reports findings from a representative survey of the British p…
Sentencing Trends in Britain: Public Knowledge and Public Opinion
Research on public opinion over the past three decades has consistently established that the British public are critical of sentencers, and that this criticism exists independent of crime trends and even dramatic changes in criminal justice policies. This finding points to the possibilities that the findings are an artefact of the approach used by these surveys or that public opinion is formed in ignorance of actual practice. The 1996 British Cri…
Restorative Sentencing: Exploring the Views of the Public
Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice
Research on public knowledge has found that the public knows little about crime or the criminal justice system including crime-related statistics such as crime rates, recidivism rates, and average sentences. Members of the public have little familiarity with specific laws or with their legal rights. Although some research shows that most people favor the imposition of harsher sentences on convicted offenders, more refined research reveals that th…
Prior Record Enhancements at Sentencing: Unsettled Justifications and Unsettling Consequences
The consequences of a person’s prior crimes remain after the debt to society is paid and the sentence is discharged. While the practice of using prior convictions to enhance the severity of sentence imposed is universal, prior record enhancements (PREs) play a particularly important role in US sentencing, and especially in guidelines jurisdictions. In grid-based guidelines, criminal history constitutes one of the two dimensions of the grid. The e…
The Role of Criminal Record in the Sentencing Process
An offender's criminal history plays an important role in sentencing in all jurisdictions. Statutory enhancements for repeat offenders exist in most countries, and there is widespread public support for harsher penalties for recidivists. Advocates of general or specific deterrence support a recidivist premium on the grounds that recidivists are more likely to reoffend and need stronger disincentives. Incapacitationists argue that longer detention…
Race, Ethnicity, and Criminal Justice in Canada
The relationship between crime and race or ethnicity has important implications for Canada. The constitution affirms the country's multicultural heritage. As in other Western nations, certain minorities are overrepresented in the prison population. Aboriginal and black offenders account for a disproportionate number of admissions. There has not been much research on why such disproportions exist, except concerning Aboriginal Canadians. Canada is …
Listening to the Crime Victim: Evaluating Victim Input at Sentencing and Parole
Crime victims play an increasingly important role in the criminal process. One manifestation of this is the proliferation in the use of victim impact statements at sentencing and parole hearings. Across the common‐law world victims are allowed to submit an impact statement to a sentencing court or parole board. Many U.S. states go further and encourage (or allow) victims to recommend a specific sentence to the court or to express their views on t…
Public Opinion, Criminal Record, and the Sentencing Process
An offender's criminal record is a powerful determinant of sentence severity in almost all criminal justice systems. State and federal sentencing guidelines accord a central role to criminal record, which is the second most important factor after crime seriousness. As well, most states have recidivist statutes such as "three strikes and you're out," which prescribe swinging penalties for recidivist offenders. Although a great deal of research has…
Democratising punishment: Sentencing, community views and values
This essay explores and critiques a theory of criminal justice which privileges the role of public intuitions about punishment over more traditional influences on sentencing principles and practice. This movement may be termed ‘Democratising Punishment’ and it has important consequences for sentencing in all jurisdictions. Several recent books advocate reforms such as deriving sentencing principles from public opinion research or sentencing by ju…
Custody or community? Exploring the boundaries of public punitiveness in England and Wales
Determining the factors which make a difference between a custodial sentence and a community penalty is one of the most challenging decisions for sentencers. Little research to date has explored the nature of public reaction to mitigating factors and the circumstances which may justify imposition of a community penalty even though the custodial threshold has been crossed. This article reports findings from a representative survey of the British p…
Public Opinion and Youth Justice
Surveys conducted over the past twenty years in several English-speaking countries reveal that most members of the public subscribe to a number of misperceptions about juvenile crime and justice. Regardless of actual trends, significant majorities believe youth crime to be increasing, and most people have quite negative views of youth courts. The public display considerable ambivalence with respect to juvenile justice. While strong majorities fav…
Determining parole eligibility dates for life prisoners: Lessons from jury hearings in Canada
The Evolution of Sentencing Policy and Practice in England and Wales, 2003–2015
Sentencing in England and Wales has evolved in a direction apart from other common law countries. Although sentencing problems found in many Western nations are present, legislative and judicial responses have been very different. The use of custody rose steeply in the 1990s and has remained stable around that level in recent years. Crimes of violence and sexual aggression have, however, attracted increasingly longer sentences. The other principa…
Sentencing Members of Minority Groups: Problems and Prospects for Improvement in Four Countries
Members of racial, ethnic, and Indigenous minorities have long accounted for disproportionate percentages of prison admissions in Western nations and of prison populations. The minorities affected vary between countries. Discriminatory or differential treatment by criminal justice officials from policing through to parole is part of the problem. Much media and professional attention focuses on sentencing, where the decision-making is most public.…
Does the Crown Court Discriminate Against Muslim-named Offenders? a Novel Investigation Based on Text Mining Techniques
Most research in sentencing discrimination in the United Kingdom has relied on aggregate analyses comparing disparities by ethnic group. These studies fail to consider differences in the individual characteristics of the cases processed. To circumvent the lack of official data, we scraped sentence records stored in a commercial website, from which a sample of 8,437 offenders sentenced to custody in the Crown Court from 2007 to 2017 was generated.…
A Measure of Tolerance: Public Attitudes on Sentencing Enhancements for Old and Juvenile Prior Records
Sentencing policies routinely assign harsher punishment on repeat offenders, yet we know little about public attitudes toward recidivist sentencing premiums—beyond the predictable finding that people are more punitive when the offender is a recidivist. We conducted a survey to explore public reaction to two key inquiries: (1) whether older priors should carry less weight at new sentencing hearings and (2) whether juvenile priors should be counted…
Structured sentencing: Lessons from England and Wales for common law jurisdictions
Sentencing guidelines have been slowly evolving in England and Wales since 1998. Definitive guidelines now exist for all common offences. This jurisdiction is the only one outside the United States to develop formal, numerical guidelines which are presumptively binding on courts. Despite their unique status – as the only alternative to the grid-based schemes found in many US states – the English guidelines have attracted almost no attention from …
Alchemy in sentencing: An analysis of sentencing reform proposals in England and Wales
In the summer of 2001, the Home Office issued the Report of the Sentencing Review containing over 50 recommendations to reform the sentencing and parole systems in England and Wales. The White Paper, Justice for All, was published in 2002. The proposals constitute the most significant reform package in decades. A number of these proposals - such as the creation of a detailed sentencing guideline scheme, new sentencing options and recommendations …
Évolution et conséquence de la réforme de la sentence au Canada
Évolution et conséquence de la réforme de la sentence au Canada. Un article de la revue Sociologie et sociétés (Les formes de la pénalité contemporaine : Enjeux sociaux et politiques) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit
The Evolution of Penal Policy in Canada
This paper reviews the evolution of penal policy in Canada in recent years. In many respects, Canada occupies a unique position with respect to criminal justice. The principal influence on penal policy development has been the United States, yet at the same time developments in the United Kingdom have also been important. One result is that policy development in recent years has tended to follow a middle path between the more extreme and radical …
Rape reform in Canada: Public knowledge and opinion
The Evolution of Sentencing Guidelines in Minnesota and England and Wales
Sentencing guidelines were an exclusively American enterprise until recently. Since 2004, however, other countries have joined in. Contrasting approaches are exemplified by systems developed by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission and the Sentencing Council of England and Wales. Minnesota’s guidelines are set out in grids that categorize cases by offense and criminal history. Each cell sets out ranges of sentences that are presumed to b…
In my opinion … Lombrosian Wine in a New Bottle: Research on Crime and Race
Introduction to the Special Issue
This introduction to evaluation research on the criminal justice system provides a summary of the criminal justice system in Canada, discusses problems relating to research in the area, and introduces the articles contained in the issue
Canadian Evaluation Research in Criminal Justice: A Content Analysis
One of the most important areas to which evaluation research has made a contribution is criminal justice. This article presents a descriptive content analysis of all criminal justice evaluations published in the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminologie since these journals began publishing in 1958 and 1968, respectively. Several important findings emerged from the analysis: the number of evaluations appearing has increased significantly; …
Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice
Research on public knowledge has found that the public knows little about crime or the criminal justice system including crime-related statistics such as crime rates, recidivism rates, and average sentences. Members of the public have little familiarity with specific laws or with their legal rights. Although some research shows that most people favor the imposition of harsher sentences on convicted offenders, more refined research reveals that th…
Rape reform in Canada: Public knowledge and opinion
Public Opinion, Criminal Record, and the Sentencing Process
An offender's criminal record is a powerful determinant of sentence severity in almost all criminal justice systems. State and federal sentencing guidelines accord a central role to criminal record, which is the second most important factor after crime seriousness. As well, most states have recidivist statutes such as "three strikes and you're out," which prescribe swinging penalties for recidivist offenders. Although a great deal of research has…
Racial Disparity in Sentencing: Reflections on the Hood Study
This article analyses Roger Hood’s 1992 study of race and sentencing, which found evidence of possible racial discrimination in certain Crown Courts. Examining recent criticisms of the validity of these findings, it is suggested that an adequate threshold of significance was used in the study; that the exclusion of certain status variables did not invalidate the study’s findings; and that the choice of which sentencing variables to control for is…
Race, Ethnicity, and Criminal Justice in Canada
The relationship between crime and race or ethnicity has important implications for Canada. The constitution affirms the country's multicultural heritage. As in other Western nations, certain minorities are overrepresented in the prison population. Aboriginal and black offenders account for a disproportionate number of admissions. There has not been much research on why such disproportions exist, except concerning Aboriginal Canadians. Canada is …
The Role of Criminal Record in the Sentencing Process
An offender's criminal history plays an important role in sentencing in all jurisdictions. Statutory enhancements for repeat offenders exist in most countries, and there is widespread public support for harsher penalties for recidivists. Advocates of general or specific deterrence support a recidivist premium on the grounds that recidivists are more likely to reoffend and need stronger disincentives. Incapacitationists argue that longer detention…
The Evolution of Penal Policy in Canada
This paper reviews the evolution of penal policy in Canada in recent years. In many respects, Canada occupies a unique position with respect to criminal justice. The principal influence on penal policy development has been the United States, yet at the same time developments in the United Kingdom have also been important. One result is that policy development in recent years has tended to follow a middle path between the more extreme and radical …
Making Sense of Sentencing
Law, Crime, Punishment and SocietyGreg MarquisEds. Julian V. Roberts and David P. Cole. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 363 pp.Legal studies in Canada are experiencing a golden age as articles, anthologies and monographs produced by academics trained in the 1980s and 1990s continue to appear. Nine books, nearly 50 authors and more than 2,000 pages of text and notes later, this reviewer is suffering from intellectual fatigue, but the t…
Sentencing Trends in Britain: Public Knowledge and Public Opinion
Research on public opinion over the past three decades has consistently established that the British public are critical of sentencers, and that this criticism exists independent of crime trends and even dramatic changes in criminal justice policies. This finding points to the possibilities that the findings are an artefact of the approach used by these surveys or that public opinion is formed in ignorance of actual practice. The 1996 British Cri…
Unintentional Firearm Deaths: Can They Be Reduced by Lowering Gun Ownership Levels
Évolution et conséquence de la réforme de la sentence au Canada
Évolution et conséquence de la réforme de la sentence au Canada. Un article de la revue Sociologie et sociétés (Les formes de la pénalité contemporaine : Enjeux sociaux et politiques) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit
Penal Populism and Public Opinion: Lessons from Five Countries
Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalities exist among the five countries-the U.K., USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-surveyed here. …
Alchemy in sentencing: An analysis of sentencing reform proposals in England and Wales
In the summer of 2001, the Home Office issued the Report of the Sentencing Review containing over 50 recommendations to reform the sentencing and parole systems in England and Wales. The White Paper, Justice for All, was published in 2002. The proposals constitute the most significant reform package in decades. A number of these proposals - such as the creation of a detailed sentencing guideline scheme, new sentencing options and recommendations …
Determining parole eligibility dates for life prisoners: Lessons from jury hearings in Canada
Evaluating the Pluses and Minuses of Custody: Sentencing Reform in England and Wales
This article explores three sanctions contained in the 2002 Criminal Justice Bill which follows upon the 2002 white paper Justice for All. The Bill creates a Sentencing Guidelines Council to develop sentencing guidelines, and defines three dispositions applicable to sentences of imprisonment under twelve months: ‘Custody Plus’, the suspended sentence of imprisonment, and the intermittent sentence of imprisonment. These reforms constitute a signif…
The Virtual Prison: Community Custody and the Evolution of Imprisonment
The last twenty-five years have seen dramatic rises in the prison populations of most industrialised nations. Unable to keep up with increased numbers of convicted offenders, governments and criminal justice systems have been seeking new ways to control and punish offenders. One sanction adopted in Canada and some parts of Europe and the US is community custody which attempts to recreate the punitive nature of prison but without incarceration. Th…
Youth crime and youth justice: Public opinion in England and Wales
This report presents the findings from the first national, representative survey of public attitudes to youth crime and youth justice in England and Wales. It carries clear policy implications in relation to both public education and reform of the youth justice system
Public Opinion and Youth Justice
Surveys conducted over the past twenty years in several English-speaking countries reveal that most members of the public subscribe to a number of misperceptions about juvenile crime and justice. Regardless of actual trends, significant majorities believe youth crime to be increasing, and most people have quite negative views of youth courts. The public display considerable ambivalence with respect to juvenile justice. While strong majorities fav…
Restorative Sentencing: Exploring the Views of the Public
Understanding Public Attitudes to Criminal Justice
The State of the Prisons: Exploring Public Knowledge and Opinion
This article reviews public opinion research relating to imprisonment. The focus is upon British attitudes, but wherever possible we place findings from this country in an international context. Most members of the public report little familiarity with the prison system – few people report having had any direct contact with a penal institution. A common finding around the world is that most people believe that prison conditions are quite easy; th…
Punishing Persistent OffendersExploring Community and Offender Perspectives: Previous Convictions and the Sentencing Process (Clarendon Studies in Criminology)
Despite very diverse approaches towards punishing crime, all Western jurisdictions punish repeat offenders more harshly (a practice known as the recidivist sentencing premium). For many repeat offenders, their previous convictions have more impact on the penalty they receive than the seriousness of their current crime. Why do we punish recidivists more harshly? Some sentencing theorists argue that offenders should be punished only for the crimes …
Political science (46 works) · Criminology (44 works) · Law (42 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (41 works) · Psychology (36 works) · Criminal justice (26 works) · Law (24 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Economic Justice (21 works) · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending (18 works)