ABSTRACT
In the late 1970s, a movement began towards the development of sentencing guidelines—standards developed by a sentencing commission to establish rational and consistent sentencing practices and promote greater proportionality relative to offense seriousness. In 1980 Minnesota became the first state to enact such guidelines. Since then, multiple states, the federal government, and Washington, DC have followed suit. No state went the route of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which chose to construct a guidelines system that started with the charged offense and then layered on numerous real-offense elements to arrive at the recommended sentence. Sentences for many crimes also became more severe, and federal prison populations grew even faster than state prisons. This system has drawn sharp criticism as being too severe and too rigid and formulaic. In contrast, state systems were often able to take advantage of more modern statutes, permitting their guidelines to rely more heavily on the charged offense to differentiate between crimes and to assign appropriate sentences; state systems also allocated more discretion to the court to make adjustments for atypical cases, and paid more attention to the prison bed impacts of severe penalties. Despite these similarities, however, states have enacted a wide variety of guidelines systems. Some are mandatory, requiring strict adherence, whereas others are advisory, and merely suggest a starting point for the court. Some are enforced by appeal, others are not. And the rules that make up the core of sentencing guidelines—e.g., how the criminal history score is calculated, availability of departures, whether consecutive sentencing is regulated—vary substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In this chapter, we will describe some of the major features of sentencing guidelines systems in the states, compare and contrast them to the federal system, survey recent research on guidelines sentencing, and suggest areas for potential research and reform for all systems.
