M.A. / The pre-sentence evaluation committee was an innovation of the 1980's. It is a multidisciplinary team constituted primarily to assist probation officers with their cases in making relevant recommendations on offenders to the court. The concept of the pre-sentence evaluation committee survives in the provisions of the Probation Services Act No. 116 of 1991, and the Strategic Management Plan of the Department of Welfare and Population Development, Gauteng Province. In effect, it has been discontinued in almost all of the decentralized offices of the Department of Welfare and Population Development within the Gauteng Province. The objective of this study is to determine if the pm-sentence is still relevant to probation officers who are the major stakeholders of the committee and If so what form should the committee assume to meet the needs of probation officers. It therefore falls within the program evaluation genre in terms of its purpose. The study entails a survey of fifteen social workers in the employ of the Department of Welfare and Population Development. The majority of these are dedicated probation officers. Data is captured in using a standardized open-ended interview schedule. A qualitative research design isfollowed using a framework based on the work of Strauss and Corbin (1990). Use is made of the NUD.IST computer based program to deal with the transcripts of the fifteen interviews with departmental social workers. The program assists with the treatment of the data and the establishment of hierarchies of concepts developed during the application of Strauss and Corbin's framework. Conclusions of the study are that probation officers In general recognize that the pre-sentence evaluation committee continues to have relevance in court work. That it has greatest relevance for inexperienced social workers and workers confronted with difficult cases. On the basis of the research recommendations are made for a flexible application of the concept of the pre-sentence evaluation committee and that there are additional alternatives which can be considered in addition to the pre-sentence evaluation committee.

M.A. (Social Work) / In the recent past people became more aware of the fact that serious crimes are being committed against children. Statistics show that sexual molestation is one of the most prevalent types of offences committed against children. Society demands that such an offender must be punished in a suitable manner. Recent developments in South Africa in regard to alternative sentences led to correctional supervision. The motivation for this study was to establish differences between people who was sentenced to imprisonment and people who was sentenced to correctional supervision for committing sexual crimes against children by using three different Hudson scales, namely, depression, self-esteem, and sexual discord.

Magister Legum - LLM / Generally the Courts have a discretion to impose sentence. Violent crime was rampant in South Africa. The response of the legislature in dealing with crime was to enact legislation in 1997 like sections 51 to 53 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 which prescribe severe mandatory sentences for a large number of serious offences like murder, rape and armed robbery. This legislation come into effect on 1 May 1998 and was to have effect for two years. The President could with the concurrence of Parliament by proclamation extend its operation for one year, that was in fact done. The latest extension of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 was for a further two years making the minimum sentence provisions valid until 30 April 2005. The Courts did not like these mandatory sentences because of the limitation it places on judicial discretion and dealt with this legislation that limited their judicial discretion restrictively in order to defend their sentencing discretion. Although the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 105 of 1997 was held not to be unconstitutional the Courts stll sought to give it a narrow interpretation. This research paper include an outline of the Criminal Law Amendment Act; the Constitutional challenges that were brought against the Criminal Law Amendment Act; the judicial interpretation of the Criminal Law Amendment Act as well as the applicability of the Criminal Law Amendment Act to District Courts and juvenile ovenders; the procedural requirements that must be complied with in the Criminal Law Amendment Act and its consequences if not complied with. This paper examined how the Courts defined substantial and compelling circumstances, the approaches adopted by the Courts and when deviation from the Criminal Law Amendment Act can take place. It also include the challenges posed by mandatory minimum sentence legislation as well as recommendations for the improved implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. / South Africa

Legislation regulating minimum sentences in South Africa was re-introduced by sections 51 to 53 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 which came into operation on 1 May 1998. These provisions were regarded as a temporary measure to be effective for two years, where after they were extended from time to time. After they had been extended for several times, section 51 was rendered permanent on 31 December 2007 by the Criminal Law (Sentencing) Amendment Act 38 of 2007. At the same time sections 52 and 53 were repealed by the same Act. Minimum sentence legislation was the result of a call by the community for heavier penalties and for the offenders to serve more realistic terms of imprisonment. There was also a general dissatisfaction about the perceived leniency of sentences imposed by the courts for serious crimes. During 1996 and in the wake of these concerns the Minister of Justice requested the South African Law Reform Commission to investigate all aspects of sentencing in South Africa. A Project Committee chaired by a judge of the High Court was appointed and it operated from the late 1996 to March 1998. Minimum sentences for certain serious crimes were one of the options to be investigated by the Project Committee. Consequent to this the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 was promulgated with effect from 1 May 1998. The legislature intended this Act to defer criminal activity, to avoid disparities in sentencing and to deal harshly with perpetrators of serious offences. The subsequent amendments to the Act included the granting of jurisdiction to the Regional court to pass life imprisonment, an automatic right of appeal against life imprisonment in respect of a juvenile accused and identification of circumstances that do not constitute substantial and compelling circumstances. Judicial discretion and departure from prescribed minimum sentences had initially presented a problem regarding its interpretation in a variety of cases in our courts. Eventually our courts came up with a clear interpretation of the meaning of the phrase substantial and compelling circumstances. This research project will analyze the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 with regard to minimum sentences for certain serious offences. In the process case law and other literature will be discussed regarding the interpretation of minimum sentence provisions in the Act. Recommendations for legislation which will cover the aspect of sentencing on a wider scale are made.

The Criminal Law Amendment Act introduced a scheme where minimum sentences are prescribed for serious offences into the South African Criminal Law. The limitations put on the courts’ sentencing discretion were not received with unanimous approval from all quarters. The Constitutional Court declared the general working of the Act to be constitutional soon after its inception. Specific provisions pertaining to certain offences remained unpopular. The hefty sentence of 15 years imprisonment prescribed for the possession of a semi-automatic firearm is put forward as an example in this regard. High Courts avoid the minimum sentence prescribed for this offence by using different interpretational methods. Despite the sense of animosity towards the unfair contents of this provision, no ruling is made on the constitutionality thereof. An apparent deference towards the legislature could be detected on the part of the judiciary. South African jurisprudence discourages our courts to rule on the constitutionality of a law. It is only done when the defect could not be remedied by any other available means. The reluctance of our courts to make a ruling on the constitutionality of the semi-automatic provision does not promote legal certainty. High Courts attach different interpretations to the “true intention” of the legislature in order to bypass this provision. Logic dictates that inexperienced presiding officers with inferior interpretational skills would continue to hand down the minimum sentence while it remains on the law books. A sentence of fifteen years is also prescribed for robbery with aggravating circumstances. The existing common law on the interpretation of the definition of this offence provides for a wide range of human conduct to be included. Case law could be expected where the courts deviate from the prescribed sentence on a regular basis. This unscientific approach should be discouraged and a rethinking of the boundaries of this offence is suggested. The Act is doing more harm than good to our Criminal Law. The legislature could still provide other visible measures against serious crime without invading the sentencing discretion of the judiciary.

It is generally agreed that a criminal justice system reflects the values of the society within which it exists. The presence of patriarchal social values will likely affect the response of the criminal justice system to intimate violence. While the perpetration of violence against another is a violation of an important social norm, patriarchal values may function to discount the seriousness of such an act, if the violence is perpetrated by a man against his girlfriend or wife. This discount of seriousness may lead to less severe punishment for men who assault their intimates than to men who assault nonintimates. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that men who are convicted of committing serious assaults against female intimates receive more lenient punishment than men who are convicted of committing serious assault against nonintimates. Punishment was defined as sentencing outcomes, i. e. type and length of sentence. The sentences of offenders convicted of felony assaults as the major offense and subject to sentencing guidelines in Oregon in 1993 were examined. Chi-square tests were used to compare the sentence types of intimate and nonintimate violence offenders. Two-tailed !-tests and multiple linear regression were used to examine the relationship between victim-offender relationship and length of sentence. It appears that the presence of Oregon's sentencing guidelines, rather than victim-offender relationship, had the greatest effect upon the severity of punishment. This finding suggests that the guidelines may be responsible for minimizing the impact of patriarchal values on sentencing decisions in serious assault cases.

No description available.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The present paper is a descriptive study of sex offender sentencing in three Oregon counties in 1992. It examines the relationship between sentencing practices and indigent offenders. It focuses specifically on the question of offender indigent status and court ordered sex offender treatment. The study also provides information about the number of sex offenders in each of the three counties, how the offenders' sentences were determined by the courts through the use of the sentencing guidelines matrix, what type of plea was used, and what if any influence indigence had in the sentencing outcomes for the felony sex off enders in this study. Viewed from a conflict theoretical perspective, it was expected that indigent sex offenders would experience differential treatment by the courts. Two-tailed chi-square tests were computed to determine if a difference exists between sentences given indigent and non-indigent offenders. The same tests were applied to determine if there exists a difference between indigent and non-indigent in regard to the addressing of treatment in the sentence order. The tests were considered significant at the . 05 level. A significant difference was found between probation sentences and prison sentences for indigent versus non indigent offenders. Frequency scores were examined for this study by the number of indigent sex offenders that were convicted in each sample county for 1992, guilt type, guilt type and sentence, sentencing guidelines matrix score, indigence and race, and treatment by county. There is minimal information on the topic of sex offenders and the possible relationship between indigence, sentence disposition and treatment. The information contained in this study will contribute to the body of knowledge in the area of sex offenders and the results of this study will provide information useful for further research.

No Abstract available / Jurisprudence / L.LD.