RT Article
T1 Excessive Uniformity in Federal Drug Sentencing
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 25
IS 2
SP 155
OP 180
A1 Sevigny, Eric L.
LA English
YR 2009
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764280385
AB The ideal of fair and proportionate punishment was a major impetus for federal sentencing reform. Observers of the current federal drug sentencing regime contend that the sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums lead to the problem of “excessive uniformity” in which offenders of widely differing culpability receive similar sentences due to the dominance of drug quantity as a sentencing factor. This study investigates this phenomenon using the 1997 Survey of Inmates in Federal Correctional Facilities. Controlling for relevant offense, offender, and case processing variables, the analysis finds that the quantity-driven sentencing fails to account for important differences in offender culpability—resulting in excessively uniform sentences for offenders with highly dissimilar roles in the offense. The main policy implication of this research is that the central, organizing role of drug quantity in federal drug sentencing needs to be rethought. Indeed, effectively dealing with the problem of excessive uniformity will likely require the wholesale restructuring of how federal sentences for drug offenders are determined.
K1 Truncated regression
K1 Survey of Inmates in Federal Correctional Facilities
K1 Drug sentencing
K1 Excessive uniformity
DO 10.1007/s10940-009-9064-z