Towards an understanding of judicial denunciation: Relating theory to practice by comparing the perceptions of English and Danish lower court judges when sentencing minor theft offenders

Abstract

The influence of judicial denunciation during sentence summation and how this equates with wider criminal justice attempts to change offending behaviour through re-education and re-moralization appears to be important. However, there is no coherent academic agreement as to what judicial denunciation means and how this may relate to its interpretation and application by judges in practice. Through a small comparison of judicial perceptions in two distinct legal cultures there were common hints provided as to what denunciation may mean when applied to theft offenders. However, the limited data gathered were insufficient to develop a firm link to any one specific sentencing principle, policy or social theory. It would appear that if we are to better understand judicial denunciation during sentence summation we must master both the plurality of theoretical understandings and philosophical thoughts available and gather significantly more qualitative data in order to test what judicial denunciation may mean. The comparison of England and Denmark was only a slight nudge in the right direction, but it remains an attempt nonetheless to keep the ball rolling and inspire future academic enquiry into this important research area.