Development of a Structured Sentencing Simulation

Abstract

Prison sentencing needs to be comprehensive, adapt to changes over time, and avoid racial, gender, and age disparities. The Structured Sentencing Simulation (sss) addresses these needs through a microsimulation of court and correctional systems, providing parameters to generate the hypothetical impact of changes in sentencing policies. The program design utilizes microsimulation techniques including micro-data input, cell-based submodels, dynamic and static aging, dynamic transition models, discrete time slicing, and disaggregation for output distributions. The quality of the results depends upon the collection and processing of large amounts of data describing an existing population of court sentences, demographic characteristics of those sentenced, cell-based estimates of transition probabilities through the criminal justice system, and global parameter estimates of overall system characteristics. The program output includes 5- and 10-year projections of prison, jail, residential treatment, and community service populations In the output from the model all population counts are broken down by sex, race, age, and other demographic variables enabling policy analysts to momtor the extent to which inmate populations are likely to be free of sentencing disparities The program has been implemented in several state sentencing studies. Aspects of the system have implications for simulations in other social contexts.