To what extent should an offenders background be taken into consideration when sentencing?

This.

I don't recall Marx wanting to do away with the entire concept of personal responsibility. Where did he write that?

So for me, I think there's two prongs to the criminal system - one is justice ie, holding someone accountable for their actions or behaviours, the other for me is about appropriate intervention to reduce the risk of reoffending.

While I absolutely sympathise with any victim of crime (I've been a victim of a genuinely terrifying crime myself) I think the most important part is the second part because that's what creates a safer society and reduces the risk to both the victim and other people. And that is utterly dependent on understanding WHY someone has done what they've done. So in that respect, to me, the 'right' justice is the one that helps stop the same thing from happening again.

I also think free will is obviously very important, but we also can't pretend that everyone is starting on a level playing field and there are many perpetrators of crime who have done what they've done because they've actually been a victim of crime themselves. A perfect example of this is young people who grow up in care being significantly more likely to be groomed by gangs and exploitated into doing criminal activity that benefits the gang. Its highly targeted and extensive and there's only so much the system can do as it stands to protect vulnerable and traumatised children from falling prey to this. It's possible to be both a criminal and a victim at the same time and I do think it's crucial that's taken into account in sentencing, otherwise you create a system that is so focused on making examples of the people they catch that they miss the instigators, the cycle continues and the reoffending rates remain high. We know statistically that harsh sentencing isn't a good enough deterrent for many types of crimes.

This is such an interesting question and, related to this, one could ask to what extent an adult should be treated as fully responsible for crimes when he or she has been a victim throughout life. It is highly relevant to women because most women in prison have themselves been victims of abuse.

I don’t know the answer but I believe a judge should be able to consider the full picture, including the nature of the crime and the impact on the victim, should be considered. Judges should have discretion to come up with a just sentence. It is very complicated!

This also demonstrates the importance of investing in early intervention so that disadvantaged children are not trapped in a cycle.

Nice try Kier

I don’t think it should be taken into account when sentencing. Many people suffer horrible childhoods and don’t grow up to perteptuate these patterns in behaviour.

i do however feel VERY strongly we should be tackling adverse childhood experiences as a matter of urgency so our next generations won’t have to have quite so much childhood trauma taken into account. This for me is better education, quality early years support, real robust protection for abused women and children. Reproductive education and access to contraception. Support for special needs and disability. Living wages. Initiatives to get children growing up in poverty out of poverty. Non resident parents being held to account more if they don’t provide financially for their children. And better mental health support for children and adults.

Yes there’s a danger of being too liberal about potential contributing or mitigating factors. How would a person evidence that they were mistreated as a child? Does it have to be backed up by a police/SS history, what if the family hid it well?

I think we run the risk of being accidentally unjust, eg a Black person could be said to carry a history of racist incidents on top of generational trauma while a white person is always assumed to be privileged despite maybe growing up in deprivation where generations have never worked and the family are all alcoholics.

We can go round in circles trying to compare suffering v hardship and give the appearance to the victim that the system is far more interested in the criminal’s wellbeing. These factors can be examined in an academic way but the public need to see reasonable justice being done or there would be a perception that people are getting ‘Mickey Mouse’ sentences.

i don’t know think sentencing should differ greatly - but that background material is supplied to prison and probation staff as a personal history of their inmate to help inform risk assessments and needs.

All of the so called ‘nuances’ are basically nonsense excuses to justify the march towards doing away with the entire concept of personal responsibility. Straight out of the Marxist playbook.

It’s always someone else’s fault - parents, neighbours, the dog.