Mandatory Minimum Penalties and the U.S. Sentencing Commission's "Mandatory Guidelines"

Mandatory Minimum Penalties and the U.S. Sentencing Commission's "Mandatory Guidelines"

Mandatory Sentencing

Adam Graycar Director There is a widely held belief that the imposition of a mandatory sentence for a second or third offence will have a significant deterrent effect on that individual and will send a message to potential offenders. Advocates argue that it will bring consistency in sentencing and appease public concern about crime and punishment. This proposition has been debated vigorously in...

Fifteen Years after the Federal Sentencing Revolution: How Mandatory Minimums Have Undermined Effective and Just Narcotics Sentencing Perspectives on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Mandatory Sentencing

Sentencing Commissions and Their Guidelines

Sentencing commissions, administrative agencies charged to develop and promulgate standards for sentencing, were first proposed early in the 1970s and first established in 1978. Of four recent major sentencing reform approaches-the others being parole guidelines, voluntary sentencing guidelines, and statutory determinate sentences-only sentencing commission systems continue to be created. Despi...

Making the Crime fit the Penalty: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion Under Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

This paper empirically documents one way in which prosecutorial discretion can be used to dampen the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Specifically, I show prosecutors use their discretion over prosecution charges to circumvent a mandatory minimum sentencing law for some defendants, by prosecuting these defendants who were initially arrested for the crime targeted by the sentencing ...