RT Article
T1 Have Federal Sentencing Guidelines Reduced Severity? An Examination of One Circuit
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 17
IS 2
SP 111
OP 144
A1 Kempf Leonard, Kimberly
A1 Sample, Lisa L.
A2 Sample, Lisa L.
LA English
YR 2001
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/176427640X
AB Congress intended to make the sentencing process less discretionary and more equitable for similarly situated defendants when it passed the U.S. Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Sentencing guidelines were devised to promote these changes. After more than a decade of implementation, however, little is known about the impact of the new policy. This paper examines sentences given between 1993 and 1994 in one federal circuit in an effort to determine whether this policy instrument has achieved success. The theoretical model of a rational case processing system (Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1980) is used to guide the interpretation of our findings and the recommendations we offer for improvements.
K1 Guidelines
K1 Equity
K1 Disparity
K1 Sentencing
DO 10.1023/A:1011032013115