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Assessing determinate and presumptive sentencing—Making research relevant *
Author(s) -
Engen Rodney L.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
criminology and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.6
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1745-9133
pISSN - 1538-6473
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9133.2009.00559.x
Subject(s) - criminal justice , sociology , citation , economic justice , criminology , library science , law , political science , computer science
As of 2002, 17 states had switched from “indeterminate” to “determinate” sentencing (i.e., eliminating parole and requiring judges to order definite-length sentences), 18 states and the federal courts operated “presumptive sentencing” systems restricting judicial discretion (9 “offensebased” systems like that in Ohio and 9 with grid-based “guidelines”), and 8 states had developed “voluntary” guidelines (Stemen, Rengifo, and Wilson, 2005).1 In addition, every state had one or more “mandatory minimums” (most often for drug and weapon offenses) and minimum time-served requirements (i.e., “truth in sentencing”), and 80% of states had adopted habitual offender statutes (e.g., “three strikes”). The most sweeping of these reforms, the determinate and presumptive sentencing systems, sought a variety of policy objectives, most notably to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities (gender disparity has been of less concern to lawmakers) and to ensure that punishment is based primarily on offense severity, criminal history, or other factors deemed legally relevant by state legislatures. In some instances, lawmakers explicitly sought to increase imprisonment for certain offenders, and some states sought to use guidelines as a tool for limiting growth in their prison populations (Marvell and Moody, 1996). With the exception of changes in parole and truth-insentencing laws, these reforms have been aimed at regulating the sentencing practices of judges.