Comments on white paper on crime: 'criminal sanctions

• Author: Tom O'Malley
• Position: B.A. (N.U.I.), M.A. (N.U.I.), LL.B. (N.U.I.), LL.M. (Yale), B.L. (King's Inns). Senior Lecturer in Law, NUI Galway
• Pages: 1-13

2010] Comments on White Paper on Crime 1

COMMENTS ON WHITE PAPER ON CRIME:

“CRIMINAL SANCTIONS”

TOM O’MALLEY*

INTRODUCTION

I welcome the publication of the discussion paper on

criminal sanctions1, which is a balanced and thoughtful

document. It raises many important questions and all I can do in

the time available is to touch on a few central issues in relation to

sentencing policy and sentencing decision-making in the hope

that they may provide a basis for further discussion both here

today and into the future.

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF SENTENCING WITHIN THE SYSTEM

Although we have a significant and ever expanding corpus

of substantive and procedural criminal law, we must not forget

that for the vast majority of those charged with criminal offences,

sentence is all that matters, simply because they plead guilty.

In 2008, for example, almost 3,000 defendants were convicted in

the Circuit Court. Of these, 2,500 pleaded guilty, representing a

guilty plea rate of 83%. For drug offences, there was a guilty plea

rate of 94%. A similar pattern is found in other common law

jurisdictions.

II. SENTENCING WITHIN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

The criminal justice system may be analysed in both

institutional and systemic terms. At one level, it consists of a set

of institutions including police, prosecution service, courts,

probation service, prison service, parole authority and so forth.

It differs, however, in one crucial respect from, say, a large

private corporation which may also have several different units

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* Tom O’Malley, B.A. (N.U.I.), M.A. (N.U.I.), LL.B. (N.U.I.), LL.M. (Yale),

B.L. (King’s Inns). Senior Lecturer in Law, NUI Galway.

1 (Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, February 2010).