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. Despite controversies associated with the highly unpopular federal guidelines, commissions and their guidelines have achieved their primary goals. Some commissions have achieved specialized technical competence, have adopted comprehensive policy approaches, and have to a degree insulated policy from short-term political pressures. Guidelines have reduced disparities and gender and sex differences in sentencing and by tying policies to available resources have enabled some jurisdictions to resist national trends toward greatly increased prison populations. The sentencing commission is alive and well. Proposed by Judge Marvin Frankel more than twenty years ago as a device for reducing sentencing disparities and judicial "lawlessness," sentencing commissions were to be specialized administrative agencies charged to set standards for sentencing (Frankel 1972). Some commissions have operated much as Judge Frankel hoped they would; they have achieved and maintained specialized institutional competence, have to a degree insulated sentencing policy from short-term "crime of the week" political pressures, and have maintained a focus on comprehensive system-wide policymaking. Guidelines promulgated by commissions have altered sentencMichael Tonry is Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School.