Sentence (law)

[2] Additional sentences include intermediate, which allows an inmate to be free for about 8 hours a day for work purposes; determinate, which is fixed on a number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated, which mandates the minimum period be served in an institutional setting such as a prison followed by street time period of parole, supervised release or probation until the total sentence is completed.

However, in certain legal systems, a defendant may be punished beyond the terms of the sentence, through phenomena including social stigma, loss of governmental benefits, or collectively, the collateral consequences of criminal charges.

[1] However, in some jurisdictions, prosecutors have great influence over the punishments actually handed down, by virtue of their discretion to decide what offenses to charge the offender with and what facts they will seek to prove or to ask the defendant to stipulate to in a plea agreement.

For instance, an armed career criminal or habitual offender law may subject a defendant to a significant increase in their sentence if they commit a third offence of a certain kind.

The earliest use of the term with this meaning was in Roman law, where it indicated the opinion of a jurist on a given question, expressed in written or in oral responsa.

In England and Wales, section 142 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 has specified that in cases involving those over 18, courts should have regard to punishment of the offenders retribution, deterrence, reform and rehabilitation, protection of the public, and reparation to persons affected by their offences.