When sentencing, courts must find an appropriate punishment in the area of conflict between individualization and equal treatment. In the dogmatic part, this dissertation shows that individualization is wrongly given priority in case law. The consequences became clear in the course of our own empirical study of almost 240 criminal court judges: there are considerable differences in sentencing between them. The fact that the freest possible discretion leads to appropriate sentences must therefore at least be called into question. The paper concludes by outlining measures to improve the uniformity of sentencing without making it impossible to assess individual cases.

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