Aggravating and mitigating factors in sentencing guidelines and their expanded explanations

In the Sentencing Council’s strategic objectives for 2021-2026  we made a commitment to “explore how the Council’s expanded explanations are being interpreted and applied by sentencers in practice”. This qualitative research report reviews how selected aggravating and mitigating factors, and their accompanying expanded explanations, were identified and interpreted by the judges and magistrates who took part.