According to the state’s new guidelines, juvenile convictions that are 10 years or older should no longer be considered when determining a person’s sentence.
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Restrictions on media coverage and the use of sexual history in court would be more effective changes.
Impact of race and culture assessment reports (IRCAs) are meant to give judges context with the aim of ultimately creating a more equitable and fair criminal justice system.
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The right to a fair trial means cutting the funding of cultural reports will simply shift the burden. Lawyers will find other ways to put the same information before a judge.
The possibility of introducing mandatory prison sentences for prolific shoplifters has been mooted by government ministers.
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Integrated offender management is a better way of dealing with shoplifters than prison.
Canadians first learned about a price-fixing scandal that raised the wholesale price of bread in 2017, when Loblaw and George Weston revealed their part in it. A worker restocks shelves at an Atlantic Superstore grocery in Halifax in January 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kelly Clark
Research on developing brains has helped bring about a sea change in attitudes toward juvenile life without parole. But many people who committed crimes as minors are still serving such sentences.
A 25-year old sex offender was given a 10% discount on his sentence due to his age, and ended up getting home detention. But is 25 really too young to understand the gravity of sexual assault?
Lisa Marriott, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand came very close to having an independent sentencing council to help set sentencing guidelines for crimes. For the sake of consistency, it might be time to revive the idea.
The prosecution and death sentences handed out to two British and one Moroccan national fighting alongside Ukrainian troops contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
Experts help explain the context around the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and subsequent trial and convictions of Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William Bryan.
New Zealand and Australia have no prisoner transfer agreement. By negotiating one, we could deport the Christchurch terrorist and help resolve the trans-Tasman prisoner problem in the process.
A whole life sentence has never been imposed in New Zealand but it seems likely the prosecution will call for one for the Christchurch gunman.
Felicity Huffman leaves federal court with her husband William H. Macy, left, and her brother Moore Huffman Jr. rear center, after she was sentenced in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal, Sept. 13, 2019, in Boston.
(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer
The fallout from the Huffman case has been intense, with much anger centered on the light punishment meted out to a white A-list celebrity versus the excessive charges levelled at Black defendants.
Governments should adopt measures that have been proven to be effective or at least show promise.
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Governments impose harsh restrictions to the freedom of sex offenders after their sentence. But there’s no evidence to support that ‘doing more of the same’ improves community safety.
Seventy people were charged at an Extinction Rebellion protests earlier this month in Brisbane. Were they undermining the law, or showing principled behaviour?
Darren England/AAP
How do jurors use different kinds of information about mental illness when making sentencing decisions? An experiment finds that neurobiological evidence could harm or help defendants.