Abstract
This paper initially set out to analyse sentencing decisions for drug offences in order to distil a set of principles or jurisprudential values in a core area of criminality. Instead, it found that the cases favour a negation of principle; what is called an anti–jurisprudential jurisprudence. This jurisprudential void — it is argued — owes much to the pervasiveness of liberal ideology. Moreover, it is suggested that the flexibility of liberal ideology helps to explain the lack of a consistent moral framework within which sentencing decisions can be placed. The final part of the article thus takes seriously the idea that the search for an overarching theory of punishment is futile. Rather, it is argued there is a need to focus on discrete forms of criminal conduct as a foundation for generating discrete moral theories of punishment. Put another way, the article suggests that we need to think about jurisprudences of sentencing.
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