oversentence

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ sentence.

Verb

oversentence (third-person singular simple present oversentences, present participle oversentencing, simple past and past participle oversentenced)

1. (transitive) To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary.
   • 2017 July 25, Cory Doctorow, “SLIM: An open, transparent, hand-computable sentencing algorithm”, in Boing Boing‎^[1]:

     Machine learning companies are making big bucks selling opaque, secretive sentencing algorithm tools to America's court systems: the vendors of these systems claim that they are too sophisticated to explain, and use that opacity to dismiss critics who say the algorithms oversentence black and poor people.

   • 2023 December 8, Anthony Ehlers, “Who is a political prisoner?”, in Chicago Reader‎^[2]:

     Judges consistently oversentence people to prove they are “tough on crime,” and do so under the guise that such sentences will deter others.