Where social disadvantage is established, a sentencing judge must take it into account as a mitigating factor in the exercise of the sentencing discretion; the word 'may' in Bugmy at [40] refers to the ultimate effect of the factor after balancing countervailing considerations, not to whether its consideration is optional. Failure to do so constitutes House v R error requiring re-sentencing. The Bugmy principle applies even where the disadvantage involves exposure to a criminal milieu in the extended family and community rather than the paradigm case of alcohol abuse and domestic violence in the immediate family, though the mitigatory weight may be less.
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