(e) the making of reparation by offenders to persons affected by their offences.” All of these factors, except in the earlier period for (e), have been features of sentencing policy for very many years. For my part, I doubt whether the disenfranchisement of convicted prisoners can realistically be regarded as an additional punishment or a deterrent, and it may at least arguably be said to work against the reform and rehabilitation of the offender. But in my opinion, it has a more fundamental rationale. All criminal law, and penal policy in particular, has an important demonstrative function, which underlies all five of the statutory sentencing factors. The sentencing of offenders, and imprisonment more than any other sentence, is a reassertion of the rule of law and of the fundamental collective values of society which the convicted person has violated. This does not mean that the offender is disenfranchised because he is unpopular. Nor does it mean that he is regarded as having lost all civil rights or all claims against society, which is why the expression “civil death” is inappropriate. The present rule simply reflects the fact that imprisonment is more than a mere deprivation of liberty. It is a temporary reclusion of the prisoner from society, which carries with it the loss of the right to participate in society’s public, collective processes. Similar principles appear to underlie the exclusion of convicted offenders from the franchise in the many other jurisdictions which practise it, whether on an automatic or a discretionary basis, and in particular those in which the suspension or abrogation of voting rights may be imposed independently of a prison sentence or continue after a term of imprisonment has been served. 129. Fundamental to this approach, and to the automatic character of the exclusion of convicted prisoners from the franchise is the principle that sentences of imprisonment are imposed only for the more serious offences. This has always been a central feature of sentencing policy. Currently, section 152 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, repeating previous statutory provisions and the long-standing practice of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) provides: “(2) The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it, was so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence.” The only exceptions relate either to a very few grave offences where the sentence is prescribed (such as murder, some firearms offences, repeated violence or Class A drug trafficking) or to a separate sentencing regime for dangerous repeat offenders. The section also provides that it does not apply in cases where the offender has refused to accept or comply with the conditions on which some lesser sentence would have been imposed. These principles are broadly reflected in the Page 59