Twenty years of sentencing reform: steps forward, steps backward

Abstract

The overall impression the time-traveling judges would take back with them would probably be shaped by whether they learn first about federal or state sentencing reforms. If they were to study the changes brought about by the federal Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, they would return to 1970 determined to fight the first signs of the sentencing reform movement. Because the federal commission had the prior experiences of the states to draw on, ample resources, and the capacity to recruit staff from throughout the country, all of the auguries would have predicted that the US Sentencing Commission would build on the state experiences and produce the most successful guidelines system to date. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 abolished parole release prospectively and directed the newly created sentencing commission to develop guidelines for federal sentencing. Few outside the federal commission would disagree that the federal guidelines have been a disaster.