Law Essay Sample: The Current Sentencing Practices in Canadian Legal System

The current sentencing practices are still allowed in Canadian legal system because there is no evidently articulated philosophy of sentencing. Instead of taking into account the particular aspects of the case such as the culture and the originality of the criminal, and all the present sanctions, the judicial courts are inclined to pass a sentence because they are in keeping the priory imposed sentencing. This brings about a new philosophy of sentencing that denies the relevance and discounts the effect of the societal sanctions. This results in courts making decisions that infrequently reflect the beliefs, principles, and the cultures of the communities of Aboriginal. The Aboriginal people view sentencing as an exercise performed for a mysterious purpose of the non-Aboriginal justice court system.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Therefore, in accordance with the cultural sensitivity of the Aboriginal people a sentencing practice that would make less use of the correctional facilities, aims at strengthening the use of societal sanctions, addresses the requirements of victims and criminals, provide for proper and defining role in the growth and monitoring sentences.

The Need for a New Approach in Sentencing

Reforming of the current sentencing procedures is a bit challengeable, however, it is not appropriate for the courts' systems to continue with the present practices. Therefore reformation of sentencing practices must be in line with several legal elements: In that, the court sentencing practices must refrain from too much dependence on incarceration and put in place sentences that allow for the strengthening of society sanctions and incorporation of reconciliation programs. Secondly, the Parliament must approve, and the judicial courts must apply, a new and reformed philosophy that is not based on punitive actions but rather on the requirements of the victims, society and criminals. Thirdly, reformation of sentencing should consider cultural aspects at great lengths for the purposes of handling cultural sensitive issues that could affect the community. Lastly, within the judicial court system it of the essence to allow the community to play a crucial role especially in making a decision before the ruling is made.

Strengthening community sanctions

As discussed earlier on, the approach of imposing imprisonment is expensive and ineffective therefore the incarceration aspect should be used as the last resort. Emphasis is put on the employment of the use of community-based sentencing approach (Hylton, 1994). As such, the Canadian Sentencing Commission illustrates that there is a display of bias towards the use of imprisonment because for most of the criminals the penalty indicated is viewed as a maximum term of incarceration. Due to these perceptions, a number of challenges arise if a judge chooses sentencing an offender to incarceration. Significantly, despite the fact that the imprisonment sentencing is very expensive sanction it plays a crucial role in isolating the criminals from the community for a period of time. In the past few decades, several teams and committees that are appointed by the federal were given the role of examining different facets of the criminal justice system have argued that incarceration of criminals should be used as the last resort or should exclusively be reserved for those convicted of serious crimes. However, the studies indicate that despite the much that has been said very little has been done to move the court system to the community-based sentencing approach.

The Parliament is heftily recommended by the commission to incorporate a statement of purpose and values in the criminal law. The commission continues to argue that sentences should substantially reflect the least tedious sanction appropriate to the situation. Thus, with respect to incarceration, the commission indicates that a term of incarceration should not be subjected to the criminal or the determination of the duration only for the purpose of rehabilitation. The term of incarceration should be imposed only when the court is faced with the necessity to protect the community from crimes of violence. Secondly, imprisonment should be imposed only if other sanctions are not sufficiently reflecting the depth of the offense or the repetitive nature of criminal deeds or when there is the need to protect the public or integrity of admiration of the justice. Lastly, the imprisonment sentencing should be used with the aim of penalizing the offender from willful non-compliance with the conditions of other sentences that has been subjected to the criminal where other forms of sanctions appear inadequate to compel compliance.

As emphasis is laid on the greater subject being covered in the discussion of the Aboriginal cultures, they have perceived the Canadian penal and the judicial system differently since they have different values as compared to those of the Canadian Judicial system. If the Canadian government adopted different strategies to the approach of the rulings they make in regard to the Aboriginal cultures then they would both find a way to make reasonable compromises on the aspect of cultural values and law enforcement (MacKay, 2010). With the continual of a one-sided system that seems to favor the government, the rate of crimes would never reduce, therefore through an adjustment of the system, the level of offenses reported would reduce and significantly reducing the incarceration rate. A means of compromise would be, instead of enacting punishment and vengeance, the intentions of the Aboriginal communities would be the demonstration of the communitys act of disapproval to the behaviors towards the counsel, the end result would be that peace and order would return to the community with no need for the use of imprisonment. In comparison, the United States of America has incorporated policies that prevent aboriginal racialized incarcerations, the police force among other independent organizations have organized sensitization programs that enable all the people to fit in the justice system.

The traditional corrective measures mostly included dialogues where the parent would hold discussions with the wrongdoers alongside elder parties and chiefs. The offenders would then acknowledge their mistakes while necessary measures were taken to ensure that the mistake would not be repeated again. This was a principle that was applicable whether the mistake was major or minor (Dylan, Regehr & Alaggia, 2008). The court system evolved to be accommodative of these practices leading to unnecessary imprisonments, however, with a review of the same, the rate of imprisonment would be minimal where these were considered to be the appropriate sentencing methods under the court systems.

Another important aspect to consider would be the application of sanctions in extreme cases where the wrongdoers do not acknowledge their wrongdoing while found guilty or the case under evaluation was extreme....