ABSTRACT
DETERMINATE SENTENCING Critics have identified several unwarranted and unwanted problems with indeterminate sentencing, as well as parole board decision making. Reformers, neoclassical theorists, politicians, and organized political action groups with punitive agendas coalesced to attack rehabilitation and parole. The primary substitute for the indeterminate sentence is the determinate sentence, a throwback to the tradition of “flat time” in our earlier history. A determinate sentence is a fixed period of incarceration imposed on the offender by the sentencing court. The ideology underlying determinate sentencing is retribution, just deserts, incapacitation, and selective incapacitation. 2
Travis and Petersilia (2001) found that 18 states have created sentencing commissions whose guidelines have restricted judicial sentencing discretion, that legislation
State Year
Arizona 1994 Arkansas 1994 California 1976 Delaware 1990 Florida 1983 Illinois 1978 Indiana 1977 Kansas 1993 Maine 1976 Minnesota 1980 Mississippi 1995 New Mexico 1979 North Carolina 1994 Ohio 1996 Oklahoma 2000 Oregon 1989 South Dakota 1996 Virginia 1995 Washington 1984 Wisconsin 2000
Meet Federal 85% requirement 50% of minimum requirement
100% of minimum requirement Other requirements
Arizona Missouri Indiana Idaho Alaska California New Jersey Maryland Nevada Arkansas Connecticut New York Nebraska New Hampshire Colorado Delaware North Carolina Texas Kentucky Dist. of Col. North Dakota Massachusetts Florida Ohio Wisconsin Georgia Oklahoma Illinois Oregon Iowa Pennsylvania Kansas South Carolina Louisiana Tennessee Maine Utah Michigan Virginia Minnesota Washington Mississippi
1984 1992 2000 2008 Discretionary Parole Expiration of Sentence
creating mandatory minimum sentences had been enacted in all 50 states, and that 40 states now have sentencing laws requiring inmates to serve at least 50 percent of their sentences in prison. Of those 50 states, 27 (and the District of Columbia) have statutes requiring offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence in prison. See Table 3.3 for a list of truth-in-sentencing requirements by state.
