Prisons and Ponishments in United States

Introduction

In the context of punishment, sentencing means the imposition of criminal penalties on defendants who have pled guilty or been found guilty at trial of one or more criminal offenses. For most crimes in most jurisdictions, the judge who receives the guilty plea or the finding of guilt makes the initial sentencing decision. However, subsequent decisions by the judge to revoke probation, or by correctional authorities to grant parole release, good-conduct credits, or temporary furlough, may have a substantial effect on the actual sentence carried out. Moreover, sentencing in the broadest sense often occurs before, or in lieu of, the judge's initial sentencing decision (Tonry, 74).

The 532,448 prisoners added to America's prisons and jails during the 1990s were 25 percent more than the number added during the 1980s and nearly sixteen times more than the average number added during the five decades before 1970 in which the incarcerated population increased. The American incarceration rate plays such a distorting role in the labor market that one study found that the U.S. unemployment rate would be 2 percent higher if prisoners were counted.

Discussion

Following Minnesota's lead, about twenty other states and the federal courts have adopted guidelines (although a few states subsequently repealed them). In more than half of these states, the guidelines are not legally binding on judges, and in about a third, the guidelines do not replace parole discretion. The federal guidelines remain controversial, but judges, attorneys, and academics have generally accepted most state guidelines (Camp, 45).

A majority of states continue to use indeterminate sentencing (retaining broad judicial and parole discretion), but with some limitations—in almost all states, including those with sentencing guidelines, certain offenses or offenders (especially repeat offenders) are subject to mandatory sentencing laws, requiring the court to impose a prison term of at least a specified length. Unlike sentencing guidelines, such mandatorysentence laws do not permit departures to take account of unusual circumstances in a given case. Many other states have limited parole release discretion, while retaining broad judicial sentencing discretion. A few states allow juries to impose or recommend sentences, and this is particularly common in death penalty cases.

With or without guidelines, the judge has determined, traditionally, the facts bearing on sentences in a hearing separate from the trial or entry of a guilty plea and subject to few of the procedural protections of trial other than the right to counsel. However, U.S. ...