This innovative volume explores a fundamental issue in the field of sentencing: the factors which make a sentence more or less severe. All sentencing systems allow courts discretion to consider mitigating and aggravating factors, and many legislatures have placed a number of such factors on a statutory footing. Yet many questions remain regarding the theory and practice of mitigation and aggravation. Drawing on legal and sociological perspectives and examining mitigation and aggravation in various jurisdictions, the essays provide practical illustrations of specific factors as well as theoretical justifications. After the foreword by Andrew von Hirsch, a number of contributors address broad conceptual issues raised at sentencing. These contributions are followed by several empirical chapters including an exploration of personal mitigation in English courts. The authors are leading scholars from a range of common law jurisdictions including England and Wales, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

'… a tremendously valuable contribution to our understanding of the poorly defined factors which may suggest mitigation or aggravation at sentencing … it represents a signal addition to one's law library …' Criminal Law Journal
'… offer[s] a valuable contribution to our thinking about the role of mitigation and aggravation, simultaneously demonstrating the need for guidance whilst offering a cautionary tale about the dangers of prescribing aggravating factors and leaving the relevance of personal mitigation ill-defined.' Jonathan Bild, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
'Yet another volume on sentencing by the prolific Canadian criminologist is both timely and potentially very useful to the practising criminal lawyers.' Criminal Law Quarterly

Julian V. Roberts is a Professor of Criminology in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and a member of the Sentencing Council of England and Wales. He is Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Criminology and Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice.