Most people assume that criminal offenders have only been convicted of a single crime. However, in reality almost half of offenders stand to be sentenced for more than one crime. The high proportion of multiple crime offenders poses a number of practical and theoretical challenges for the criminal justice system. For instance, how should courts punish multiple offenders relative to individuals who have been sentenced for a single crime? How should they be punished relative to each other?
Sentencing Multiple Crimes discusses these questions from the perspective of several legal theories. This volume considers questions such as the proportionality of the crimes committed, the temporal span between the crimes, and the relationship between theories about the punitive treatment of recidivists and multiple offenders. Contributors from around the world and in the fields of legal theory, philosophy, and psychology offer their perspectives to the volume. A comprehensive examination of the dynamics involved with sentencing multiple offenders has the potential to be a powerful tool for legal scholars and professionals, particularly given the practical importance of the topic and the relative dearth of research about punishment of multiple offense cases.

Jesper Ryberg is a Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Law at Roskilde University.
Julian V. Roberts is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford.
Jan W. de Keijser is a Professor of Criminology at Leiden University.

1. Sentencing the Multiple Offender: Setting the Stage
Jesper Ryberg, Julian V. Roberts, and Jan de Keijser
2. Retributivism, Multiple Offending, and Overall Proportionality
Jesper Ryberg
3. Exploring an Institutionalist and Post-Desert Theoretical Approach to Multiple Offence Sentencing
Anthony Bottoms
4. Retributivism and Totality - Can Bulk Discounts for Multiple Offending Fit the Crime?
Christopher Bennett
5. Multiple-Offense Sentencing Discounts: Score One for Hybrid Accounts of Punishment
Zachary Hoskins
6. Parsimony and the Sentencing of Multiple Offenders
Richard L. Lippke
7. Multiple Offenders and the Question of Desert
Youngjae Lee
8. Sentencing the Multiple Conviction Offender: Diminished Culpability for Related Criminal Conduct
Julian V. Roberts and Jan de Keijser
9. Toward a Theoretical and Practical Model for Multiple-offence Sentencing
Natalia Vibla
10. Multiple-Offence Sentencing: Some Additional Thoughts
Andreas von Hirsch
11. Principles and Procedures for Sentencing of Multiple Current Offenses
Richard S. Frase
12. Sentencing the Multiple Offender: In Search of a 'Just and Proportionate' Total Sentence
Andrew Ashworth and Martin Wasik
13. Multiple Offence Sentencing: Looking for Pragmatism not a Unifying Principle
Allan Manson
14. Solving the Multiple Offense Paradox
Michael Tonry