Criminology Research Council grant ; (79/98-9)
The first part of the study offers a quantitative description of the way judges apply the totality principle. It does this by means of an analysis of archival sentencing data. The sample selected from cases heard in the Victorian County Court in 1995 and 1996 comprise rape, armed robbery and burglary as principal offences. Across the three samples of offences there were 64 offenders. In 31 of these cases cumulation was considered to be excessively harsh. The legal category of offence did not appear to be a factor, however, there was some tendency for the incidence of disproportionality to be lower where the sum of the secondary sentences was higher and for the single event and escapade categories. According to this report, too many offenders served too much unnecessary time in prison.