Jasmine Guerrier

Chapter 01

Can the judge you draw decide your sentence?

• Sentencing guidelines narrow a judge's discretion, but they do not remove it.
• Working before judges in Washington, D.C., Guerrier saw how differently individual judges weigh punishment, rehabilitation and mitigating circumstances.
• Two defendants with similar records and offenses can leave with different sentences partly because of who was assigned to the case.
• Individualised justice has to be weighed against the risk that discretion produces arbitrary disparities.

Chapter 02

Should prisoners be penalised for programmes they never had?

• Rehabilitation programmes differ from one prison to the next, so some prisoners can study or get treatment and others cannot.
• People may struggle to show rehabilitation not because they refuse to change, but because their prison lacked the resources.
• Courts that judge prisoners by achievements they were never equally able to earn build in a quiet inequality.

Chapter 03

Should who someone is now outweigh what they did then?

• People convicted of serious crimes as teenagers can be fundamentally different after 15 or 20 years inside.
• Guerrier documents present character through relatives, friends, prison staff and fellow prisoners who watched that growth.
• The original offense still matters, but looking only at it ignores real change in maturity, behaviour and risk.