presidio en su grado medio

19:12 May 31, 2013 

That is a better way of saying what I meant to say. I was unduly brusque and dismissive; I apologise. It is going too far to say that the US and UK guidelines are not relevant, and I quite agree that the possibility of drawing equivalences should be considered.

19:02 May 31, 2013 

Guidelines are very important and, in this case, the first step to check for equivalents. But the tables are too different. It's like trying to translate dos centímetros as one inch instead of two centimeters. Since the systems are too different, I prefer to translate in a way that conveys the structure of the SL. If the reader doesn't know how long two centimeters is, the reader will have to investigate on his own -- as what will need to be done with medium-range, long-term imprisonment.

17:17 May 31, 2013 

I would say that the UK and US sentencing guidelines are so different from the Chilean system that it is fundamentally inappropriate to attempt to match up their respective categories. They are, of course, important in their own contexts, but they are not relevant to this question.

15:00 May 31, 2013 

I cannot see - as a yardstick and an approx. analogy with the Chilean crim. justice system - any reference either to the US Fed. Sentencing Guidelines with Tables of Zones or the UK Sentencing Tariff Guidelines. I assume no one thinks either is important or relevant to the question.

20:50 May 30, 2013 

That looks like a workable solution. Thanks for engaging on this!

20:45 May 30, 2013 

The only other thing I would suggest is to call it "medium-range" to keep in line with maximum- and minimum-range.

20:36 May 30, 2013 

"Perhaps 'prisión menor' should be translated 'short-to-medium term'"

Yes, I feel this is the best option if we consider what you've discussed thus far. The option whether to hyphenate or not would be up to the writer (short-to-medium-term imprisonment or short to medium term imprisonment).

Additionally, I agree with the above considering that we can translate Section 59, Subsections 9-11 (cited in my reference comments) as the following (keeping in mind that these statutes cover a one- to sixty-day custodial sentence):

9.° Prisión en su grado máximo.
10. Prisión en su grado medio.
11. Prisión en su grado mínimo.

9. Maximum-range incarceration.
10. Mid-range incarceration.
11. Minimum-range incarceration.

20:29 May 30, 2013 

@Charles, I follow your line, but I have a problem with l-t imp. cause would leave us w/ short-t imp. for presidio menor & I don't see a 5-yr prison sent. as a short term. // Yes, problem w/ med-term imp. That is why I prefer your line of thinking. I'll meditate on it.

19:59 May 30, 2013 

How should we translate "presidio mayor" (5-20 yrs) and "presidio menor" (61 days to 5 yrs)? I think "long-term" is the only viable option for mayor. But neither short-term nor medium-term is ideal for menor; 61 days is short, not medium; 5 years is medium, not short. Medium term is normally reckoned to be 2-5 years or so. Some might say it could extend beyond 5, but surely not beyond 10. I still say that a sentence of 12 years is not medium-term; it is long-term.

Interestingly, when "presidio menor" (from Chile) was asked here, opinion was divided between short and medium; short was chosen:
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/spanish_to_english/law_general/343...

Perhaps "prisión menor" should be translated "short-to-medium term"; "prisión" would be "short-term". I see no sign, by the way, that prisión and presidio inherently denote different regimes in Chile (with the latter as "rigorous imprisonment", as some have suggested); the criterion seems to be purely length of sentence.