Concern with leniency

As such, one can then answer the question of “in how many of these comparisons is British Columbia more lenient?” If sentencing in British Columbia is more or less the same as in the other seven provinces, we 1 For the numerically inclined, it should be noted that the third column of figures should be the product of the second times the third. [...] Specifically, in three of the 23 ‘specific’ offence groupings (and in none of the larger groupings that we presented), the majority of the comparisons suggested more lenient sentences in British Columbia. [...] While undoubtedly bleak in its prospects for the role of the criminal justice system in crime reduction, this conclusion does not, in any way, challenge the fundamental nature of this institution and the crucial functions that criminal law and law enforcement still fulfill within the broader purpose of the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society. [...] Indeed, research has shown that public perceptions of fairness and justice provided by the criminal justice system through the imposition of just responses to offenders and offending is a fundamental cornerstone in the preservation of the legitimacy of the law as well as the promotion of respect for it. [...] To this end, we focus on several of the potential sources of this belief as a means of better understanding the nature and the extent of the concern about sentencing in this jurisdiction.