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Regulated and Unregulated Sentencing Decisions: An Analysis of First-Year Practices Under Minnesota's Felony Sentencing Guidelines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Charles A. Moore  and
Terance D. Miethe
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Abstract

Determinate sentencing reform in Minnesota aimed at enhancing sentencing uniformity and neutrality. According to official reports by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, both of these goals were largely (although not completely) achieved during the first year of guideline implementation. However, methodological shortcomings in these reports question the true effectiveness of sentencing reform. Moreover, Minnesota's felony sentencing guidelines do not encompass the full range of sentencing options available to the courts. Our study reanalyzes the Commission's data to evaluate the degree of sentencing uniformity and neutrality achieved under regulated and unregulated sentencing decisions. Our results generally confirm the Commission's reports that regulated sentencing practices were significantly more predictable and neutral than unregulated practices. We conclude that Minnesota's reform efforts have succeeded where those other states have failed because of the presumptive (i.e., legally mandated) nature of their sentencing guidelines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , 1986 , pp. 253 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Kay A. Knapp and the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission for providing the data for this study. We would also like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of the Law & Society Review for their helpful comments and suggestions. This project was supported in part by a grant from the Office of Graduate Studies and University Research at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Washington, D.C. 1985.

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