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Sentencing

Sentencing decisions—from community orders in the UK to mental health courts, mandatory minimum sentences, and "three strikes" laws in the United States—are increasingly under the microscope to lower crime rates and reduce recidivism. RAND has conducted evaluations of specific sentencing and corrections policies since well before the first three-strikes laws passed in 1994, and has reported on the costs and benefits of various sentencing laws, including whether they do in fact reduce crime.

Report
“Low-Level” Drug Offenders Often Had Serious Criminal History
Voter-approved initiatives in Arizona and California have diverted low-level drug offenders from prison and jail. However, many of those imprisoned before the initiatives were approved were more serious criminal offenders than the “low-level” label implies.
Jun 7, 2005
Journal Article
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 may be used to dampen the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing laws.
Jan 1, 2005
Report
Oregon’s Measure 11 Sentencing Reform: Implementation and System Impact
The impacts of Measure 11 on crime and its prosecution in Oregon.
Dec 13, 2004
Report
Focusing on High Risk Parolees: An Experiment to Reduce Commitments to the Texas Department of Corrections
Focusing on High Risk Parolees: An Experiment to Reduce Commitments to the Texas Department of Corrections
Jan 1, 2004
Journal Article
Measuring Interjudge Sentencing Disparity Before and After the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
This paper evaluates the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on inter-judge sentencing disparity, which is defined as the differences in average nominal prison sentence lengths for comparable caseloads assigned to different judges.
Apr 1, 1999
Testimony
Comparing the Cost-Effectiveness of Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentences and Other Federal Enforcement Programs
Testimony presented to the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary on July 29, 1999.
Jan 1, 1999
Journal Article
Measuring Inter-Judge Sentencing Disparity Before and After the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
This paper evaluates the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on inter-judge sentencing disparity, which is defined as the differences in average nominal prison sentence lengths for comparable caseloads assigned to different judges.
Dec 1, 1998
Report
Are mandatory minimum drug sentences cost-effective?
Are mandatory minimum drug sentences cost-effective?
Jan 1, 1998
Research Brief
Are Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences Cost-Effective?
Mandatory minimum sentences are not justifiable on the basis of cost-effectiveness at reducing cocaine consumption or drug-related crime.
Jan 1, 1997
Report
Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers' Money?
The authors of the current study examine mandatory minimum drug sentences from the viewpoint of cost-effectiveness at achieving such national drug control objectives as reducing cocaine consumption and cocaine-related crime.
Jan 1, 1997
Research Brief
Criminal Justice Policies Toward the Mentally Retarded Are Unjust and Waste Money
In most states, that system makes little or no allowance for the disabilities of such offenders, resulting in dispositions that are inequitably harsh and in all likelihood costlier to the public than need be the case.
Jan 1, 1997
Report
Forecasting enrollments during court-ordered desegregation
Forecasting enrollments during court-ordered desegregation
Jan 1, 1996
Report
Perceptions of punishment : inmates and staff rank the severity of prison versus intermediate sanctions
Perceptions of punishment : inmates and staff rank the severity of prison versus intermediate sanctions
Jan 1, 1995
Report
Whose judgment? : vacating judgment, preferences for settlement, and the role of adjudication at the close of the twentieth century
Whose judgment? : vacating judgment, preferences for settlement, and the role of adjudication at the close of the twentieth century
Jan 1, 1995
Report
Three Strikes and You’re Out: Estimated Benefits and Costs of California’s New Mandatory-Sentencing Law
The authors report on the benefits and costs of California's new mandatory-sentencing law, which provides for progressively longer sentences with an increasing number of prior convictions for serious felonies.
Jan 1, 1994
Research Brief
California's New Three-Strikes Law: Benefits, Costs, and Alternatives
How much crime reduction can they expect from the three-strikes law? And how much will it cost? What about the alternatives? And where will the money come from?
Jan 1, 1994
Report
Inside the Black Box: What Empirical Research Tells Us about Decisionmaking by Civil Juries
This article discusses the potential contribution to the policymaking process of systematic empirical research on the behavior of civil juries.
Jan 1, 1994
Report
Bright Hopes, Dim Realities: Vocational Innovation in American Correctional Education
To shed new light on the history of correctional education in America and on the implications of that history for reform in correctional education in the 1990s, this Note identifies some general tendencies in the history of correctional education ...
Jan 1, 1992
Report
Racial Disparities in Sentencing Decisions
Discusses the distinction between racial disparity and racial discrimination; summarizes what is known about racial bias in capital and non-capital cases; and points out the reasons that the serious limitations of the research methods in this field...
Jan 1, 1991
Report
Experimental Research on Jury Decision-Making
Jury verdicts directly affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States every year and serve a bellwether function in plea bargaining and settlement negotiations.
Jan 1, 1989

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RAND Topic:
Sentencing

Topic Synonyms:
Judgment;
Punishment

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