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The problem of multiple offence sentencing is both common and perplexing. It has recently attracted the attention of several leading sentencing scholars, but a principled response still seems elusive. A totality approach ought not to undermine proportionality. Perhaps the answer will require different approaches for different categories of problems. High end offences, attracting long sentences, can be distinguished as one category. For this group, totality is the sentencing driver, not a limit. Restraint is the key. For non-high end offences, it is valuable to consider them in relation to higher levels of culpability to maintain both proportionality and restraint. Here, totality is a limit, not the driver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, risk assessments are being adopted throughout the criminal justice system in Canada, and they are playing a significant role in the preparation of pre-sentence reports. Over the past five years, nine of Canada's jurisdictions have adopted the use of risk assessments for the preparation of youth pre-sentencing reports (PSR). While ample theoretical knowledge about risk exists, there are noticeably fewer empirical studies of how risk frameworks (re)shape and (re)organize local institutional decision-making practices or of what the socio-political effects of these processes are. Drawing on interviews, case law review, and analyses of risk-assessment documents, this article considers the implications of using risk assessments in the preparation of youth pre-sentencing reports (PSRs). In particular, attention is paid to the tensions between emerging risk practices and the emphasis on proportional sentencing under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]