Mandatory sentencing? Use [with] discretion

Mandatory Sentencing

Adam Graycar Director There is a widely held belief that the imposition of a mandatory sentence for a second or third offence will have a significant deterrent effect on that individual and will send a message to potential offenders. Advocates argue that it will bring consistency in sentencing and appease public concern about crime and punishment. This proposition has been debated vigorously in...

Making the Crime fit the Penalty: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion Under Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

This paper empirically documents one way in which prosecutorial discretion can be used to dampen the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Specifically, I show prosecutors use their discretion over prosecution charges to circumvent a mandatory minimum sentencing law for some defendants, by prosecuting these defendants who were initially arrested for the crime targeted by the sentencing ...

Sentencing guidelines, judicial discretion and plea bargaining

The United States Sentencing Commission was created to develop federal sentencing guidelines, which restrict judicial discretion and were found to increase the average sentence length while leaving unchanged the likelihood of resolution through plea bargaining. A game theoretic model is developed in which a sentencing commission may impose guidelines or defer to judicial discretion; then a defe...

Mandatory Minimum Penalties and the U.S. Sentencing Commission's "Mandatory Guidelines"

Fifteen Years after the Federal Sentencing Revolution: How Mandatory Minimums Have Undermined Effective and Just Narcotics Sentencing Perspectives on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Mandatory Sentencing