The Effect of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on Inter-Judge Sentencing Disparity

Abstract

I. INTRODUCTION A. THE GOALS OF SENTENCING REFORM The sentencing reforms of the past twenty-five years have had several goals, including "truth in sentencing," control of prison populations, and reduction of unwarranted disparity. The first goal was easily achieved when parole was abolished and the sentence imposed became the sentence served. Control of prison populations proved more difficult, and careful evaluation is needed to determine whether sentencing reform helped to check, or may have accelerated, the steady rise in prison in

Enhancing Consistency in Sentencing: Exploring the Effects of Guidelines in England and Wales

“…However, due to methodological difficulties involving the measurement of consistency (Casey and Wilson, 1998;Hofer et al, 1999;and Pina-Sánchez and Linacre, 2013) and the lack of adequate data, the empirical explorations of the success of sentencing guidelines have been practically non-existent (Roberts, 2012, andAshworth andRoberts, 2013).…”

“…We argue that to a great extent this is due to the intrinsic difficulty of measuring consistency in sentencing (Casey and Wilson, 1998;and Hofer et al, 1999). 5 , 6 Here we review the major methodological issues with measuring consistency, and in so doing we highlight the relevance of the methods that we implement in our analysis.…”

“…In doing so we contribute to both the limited literature analysing the English guidelines experience (Roberts, 2012, andAshworth andRoberts, 2013), and to the underdeveloped debate on the measurement of consistency in sentencing (Tonry, 1996, Hofer et al, 1999, and Pina-Sánchez and Linacre, 2013.…”

“…To circumvent this problem many studies have relied on a natural experiment taking place in many federal courts in the US, where judges working in the same court are assigned cases at random (Anderson et al, 1998;Hofer et al, 1999;Scott, 2010;Orchard et al, 1997;Scott, 2010;and Waldfogel, 1991). Measures of consistency can be obtained from simple comparisons of average sentence outcomes between judges.…”

“…The absence of comprehensive statistical controls makes this challenging in practice, and may lead to biased measures of consistency (Brantingham et al, 1984, Anderson et al, 1998, Hofer et al, 1999, Pina Sánchez and Linacre, 2013. To circumvent this problem we appeal to a simple observation.…”