Suspension of Sentence and Suspension of Punishment for Serious Criminal Offenses

Abstract

Suspension of sentence under Section 56 of the Criminal Code is an important measure in the criminal justice process that was established to allow the court to exercise discretion to suspend the sentence or the punishment for cases with a short prison sentence or a fine. According to the rehabilitative theory, suspension of sentence and suspension of punishment can help in preventing such offenders from associating with other offenders and imitating their behaviors which can result in repeated offenses, and give the offenders the opportunity to remorse, as well as allow the offender to rehabilitate and return to a normal life in society. However, the court can exercise its discretion to apply the suspension of sentence and suspension of punishment to all offenses despite the fact that the nature of such an offense may significantly affect the security of the society as long as the prison sentence does not exceed 5 years. This may contradict to other theories of criminal punishment, namely the retributive theory, the deterrence theory, the theory of removing offenders from society, and the preventive theory, and can affect the emotional feelings of justice of victims and of other members of society because in some cases the offense is considerably grave and imposes significant threat to the society. Moreover, it may cause the victims to suffer the injustice, and other members of society may misunderstand that such acts of violence can be carried out without any criminal penalty.

Therefore, there should be a clear guideline for the court’s discretion to order suspension of sentence and suspension of punishment so that the significance and severity of certain criminal offenses will be taken into consideration, making the punishment proportional to the offense and coherent with other theories of criminal punishment.