Member Submission: Sentencing Commission’s recidivism work “should come with a warning label”
What the Sentencing Commission was supposed to do: promote “sound sentencing practices”
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 envisioned a Commission overseeing a “research and development program” for implementing “sound sentencing practices,” with the USSC systematically collecting and disseminating research concerning sentencing practices and their effectiveness, including “information concerning sentences actually imposed, and the relationship of such sentences to the factors set forth in section 3553(a).” 28 U.S.C. § 995(a)(12), (15), (16). Section 3553(a) references several factors, but the four primary sentencing purposes stand out: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation. So the USSC website’s search tool should be a portal to mountains of data and analysis on these four primary sentencing purposes, all gathered and curated by the Commission since the late 1980s. It’s not.
What the Sentencing Commission does instead: promote a “preference for imprisonment”
For years, the Sentencing Commission has focused its considerable resources on collecting data and reporting on post-sentencing, post-release “recidivism.” This focus has recently been subjected to a withering critique in The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Recidivism Studies: Myopic, Misleading, and Doubling Down on Imprisonment, to be published in the next edition of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The author, Professor Nora V. Demleitner, shows that the Commission’s recidivism studies subtly promote imprisonment in several ways, including by:
• framing recidivism data negatively, i.e., describing the data in terms of failure rates rather than desistance rates;
• defining “recidivism” over-broadly, including not only convictions for serious crimes, but also mere arrests that didn’t result in conviction, as well as technical violations of supervision (even the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts’ annual recidivism study doesn’t do that); and
• failing to consider the criminogenic effects of imprisonment or the rehabilitative value of prison and reentry programming, and the influence of post-sentence supervision.
The article contrasts the USSC’s approach with the more balanced approach of Germany, where “recidivism” is defined more narrowly, and desistance rates are emphasized over failure rates.
Do your judges rely on recidivism rates when sentencing? If so, read this article, and prepare your defenses to the wrongheaded notion that “the past predicts the future.”
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Just an observation…..
It’s a sentencing commission not a freedom commission.
I wouldn’t think their job would be to find reasons to reduce the states employment roles rather I would gather that their main reason for existing was to justify spending or better justify more spending of taxpayers hard earned income.
Just a thought
Incarceration is a multi-billion dollar business annually. Does anyone think our corporate masters who own the government wouldn’t cash in? Laws aren’t written for we the people, they’re written for corporate interests. Period.
It really doesn’t matter what the USSC states or how they support it. The politics of the moment will always trump facts and research, as far as legislators are concerned.
This is a GREAT critique of the USSC. Thanks for sharing. I will bring this to my lawyer’s attention so they may be able to use it to help other defendants since it wasn’t available at the time of my sentencing.
This mirrors what happened to me. I pled guilty to even things I did not do as to not have anyone to go through a trial. I had never been in trouble before. I got sentenced to 22 years. I appealed and appealed and appealed. Finally after doing 10 years, I got a change of venue before a new appeals judge and got the rest of my sentenced thrown out with time served.
I spoke to some fellows who were locked up with me serving time for their 2nd murder and didn’t get as much time as me.
QUESTION: Just Read 943.04354
I may need a Lawyer, My Conviction State Ended my Registration Requirement in 2007, The State of Illinois, and mailed me out a letter stating so,…..Just need Guidance in Proceeding in this Direction:….
04354 is the Romeo and Juliet Statute. You might want to contact [email protected] to confirm you are in the right place.