NCJ Number
177894
Journal
Public Interest Dated: Fall 1997 Pages: 61-72
Date Published
1997
Length
12 pages
Annotation
In dealing with violent crime the courts have failed the public by dispensing sentences that are much less severe than is appropriate according to public belief.
Abstract
According to the 1987 National Punishment Survey conducted by the Population and Society Research Center, the public recommends prison sentences for a variety of violent and other serious crimes approximately three times longer than offenders actually serve. One of the reasons for this discrepancy between public preferences and judicial performance is that in many cases, State criminal codes are unusually lenient in their sentencing mandates. Another reason is judicial leniency. Reductions in judicial discretion in recent decades, achieved through sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum-sentencing laws in the Federal system and some States, have produced little change. In the majority of criminal convictions throughout the country, judges retain extraordinary power to choose probation or prison, to determine the length of a prison sentence, to throw out collateral convictions, and to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences for the offenders with multiple convictions. Sometimes this discretion is used in ways that defy reasonable public judgments about justice. This discrepancy between public perceptions of just sentences and the sentences dispensed by the courts should be addressed through State legislation. If the State penal codes prescribe punishments well below public standards, then they should be rewritten and brought into line with public opinion. If judges are too lenient in sentencing, then the legislature can establish presumptive sentences or mandatory minimums for serious offenders or recidivists.