Evaluating local court sentences on Maltese and foreign offenders

Abstract

The aim of this project is to evaluate court sentences issued by the Maltese courts of justice to Maltese citizens and foreigners. The period between 2014 and 2016 was chosen. All of the cases took place within the Maltese territory; sentences were retrieved from the Ministry of Justice online portal. These judgements were tabulated taking into account the type of crime, nationality, age and gender of the offender. Crimes taken into consideration were the four most common crimes which occured during that period, namely; assault, fraud, theft and drug related crimes. These were quantitatively analysed and compared. The sentences issued were probation orders, suspended sentences, prison sentences, conditional discharges and others. The distribution of the court sentences amongst Maltese and foreigners were plotted into bar graphs and quantitatively evaluated. Furthermore, recommendations for additional evidence based studies which can further explore this issue, are presented.