Understanding the uses of sentencing discretion

The work submitted here conceives of sentencing as an interpretive social process. Although previous research has shown sentencing to be an individualistic judge-centred interpretive decision process (e.g. Hogarth 1971), the features which appear to structure the decision process have tended to be taken as given, fixed, discrete, universal forces (often :alled 'factors'). My argument is that what appear to be fixed, stable, structuring forces in fact operate in combination with and through the particular (e.g. the instant case; the contextual circumstances; local court culture etc) in shifting and unstable ways.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo