115 212. The goal of reformation is ideal, and what society must strive towards – there are many references to it peppered in this court’s jurisprudence across the decades – but what is lacking is a concrete framework that can measure and evaluate it. Unfortunately, this is mirrored by the failure to implement prison reforms of a meaningful kind, which has left the process of incarceration and prisons in general, to be a space of limited potential for systemic reformation. The goal of reformative punishment requires systems that actively enable reformation and rehabilitation, as a result of nuanced policy making. As a small step to correct these skewed results and facilitate better evaluation of whether there is a possibility for the accused to be reformed (beyond vague references to conduct, family background, etc.), this court deems it necessary to frame practical guidelines for the courts to adopt and implement, till the legislature and executive, formulate a coherent framework through legislation. These guidelines may also offer guidance or ideas, that such a legislative framework could benefit from, to systematically collect and evaluate information on mitigating circumstances. Practical guidelines to collect mitigating circumstances 213. There is urgent need to ensure that mitigating circumstances are considered at the trial stage, to avoid slipping into a retributive response to the brutality of the crime, as is noticeably the situation in a majority of cases reaching the appellate stage. 214. To do this, the trial court must elicit information from the accused and the state, both. The state, must - for an offence carrying capital punishment - at the appropriate stage, produce material which is preferably collected beforehand, before the Sessions Court disclosing psychiatric and psychological evaluation of the accused. This will help establish proximity (in terms of timeline), to the accused person’s frame of mind (or mental illness, if any) at the time of committing the crime and offer guidance on mitigating factors (1), (5), (6) and