The report by the flaw Reform Commission on sentencing policy is a timely contribution to the debate on crime and punishment. A coherent and just sentencing policy is an essential component of any criminal justice system, for without it public confidence in the law will be lost. Matters have already gone some way towards such a point. There has been no shortage of cases, especially in the area of sexual and white collar crime, where erratic and inconsistent sentencing has provoked public dismay - and, quite possibly in some cases, added to the trauma suffered by the victims.
Yesterday's decision by the Court of Criminal Appeal to suspend 10 months of the 12 month sentence imposed on the solicitor, Conor Killeen, for fraud offences coincides ironically with the publication of the report. Some will see Killeen as the hapless victim of a more clever fraudster, his former partner, Elio Malocco. Others will contrast this leniency with the custodial sentences sometimes imposed upon defendants whose life circumstances are much less advantaged than those of solicitors.
In attempting to ensure greater coherence in sentencing policy, the commission recommends a series of non statutory guidelines for the judiciary. In general terms, these seek to ensure that the sentence is proportionate to the crime and they list a number of aggravating factors and mitigating factors that should be taken into account. For the most part, their recommended guidelines are sensible and pragmatic. Indeed, the commission was well advised to reverse its recommendation - in an earlier consultation paper that politicians and not judges should formulate sentencing policy. The danger inherent in such an approach is obvious: a legislature can hardly do other than formulate a rigid sentencing policy which would take little account of the very different circumstances in each individual case.
The proposed abolition of mandatory life terms for murder and treason is overdue; as the commission notes, the whole notion of a life term is now "illusory", given the practice of Ministers for Justice of releasing those serving such terms after eight or ten years.
That said, the commission treads on controversial ground by raising the possibility that the 40 year term for capital murder could be abolished. Would it not be a foolhardy move at a time when the Garda, one of the few largely unarmed police forces in the world, is confronted by ever more dangerous and brazen criminals?
The commission's failure to move beyond general platitudes about the right of the victim in criminal trials is also to be regretted. The case for mandatory victim impact statements in criminal trials, in order to give the court a measure of the distress caused to the victim, is a strong one. But the commission simply exhorts the public to avoid the "facile assumption" that society's responsibilities to the victim are best met through the imposition of heavy sentences - and it makes no recommendation on the question of victim impact statements.
That said, the authors of the report faced a difficult task in attempting to frame a more consistent sentencing policy given the failure to modernise a ramshackle criminal justice system, the lack of co ordination between its various elements and, most of all, the dearth of information and research in this State on crime and punishment. In all the circumstances, they have produced a worthwhile paper. As ever, it is now over to the politicians. Too many Law Reform reports are already gathering dust on the shelves in Leinster House.