Sentencing in all Australian jurisdictions is now largely governed by legislation which prescribes some basic guidelines and principles. At the same time, the High Court and the State appeal courts have been more active in developing a sentencing jurisprudence, effectively standardising many of the core principles of sentencing law.

However, judges and magistrates retain a wide discretion in almost every case, and lawyers argue many different, often disparate and sometimes inherently complex, factors.

The authors of this book burrow through the maze of developing sentencing law to isolate, explain and critique the principles which operate across and between jurisdictions. They identify the key themes, analyse examples from the different jurisdictions and examine the exercise of judicial discretion both in the scope of factors that may be taken into account and in the choice of sanctions.