This book provides an accessible and systematic restatement of the desert model for criminal sentencing by one of its leading academic exponents. The desert model emphasises the degree of seriousness of the offender's crime in deciding the severity of his punishment, and has become increasingly influential in recent penal practice and scholarly debate. It explains why sentences should be based principally on crime-seriousness, and addresses, among other topics, how a desert-based penalty scheme can be constructed; how to gauge punishments' seriousness and penalties' severity; what weight should be given to an offender's previous convictions; how non-custodial sentences should be scaled; and what leeway there might be for taking other factors into account, such as an offender's need for treatment. The volume will be of interest to all those working in penal theory and practice, criminal sentencing and the criminal law more generally.

1. Introduction: The Emergence of the Proportionate Sentence
2. Sentence Proportionality Sketched Briefly
3. Why Should the Criminal Sanction Exist?
4. Why Punish Proportionately?
5. Ordinal and Cardinal Proportionality
6. Seriousness, Severity and the Living-standard
7. The Role of Previous Convictions
8. Proportionate Non-custodial Sanctions
9. A 'Modified' Desert Model?
10. The Politics of the Desert Model
11. Proportionate Sentences for Juveniles

“The volume will be of interest to all those working in penal theory and practice, criminal sentencing and the criminal law more generally. It will be particularly useful for students or readers seeking a concise and up to date summary of the issues and literature relating to desert-based sentencing. Von Hirsch provides an eminently readable account of some of the most complex (and unresolved) challenges to desert theory, such as the role of previous convictions at sentencing.” –  Julian V Roberts, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

“No one is better positioned than Andreas von Hirsch to provide, what he modestly calls an overview but would be better described as, a definitive development of the desert model of criminal sentencing, from foundations to applications ... This is an excellent presentation of desert theory.” –  Susan Dimock, York University, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books