NCJ Number
172198
Date Published
1997
Length
130 pages
Annotation
The Federal Judicial Center, at the request of the Committee on Criminal Law of the Judicial Conference of the United States, surveyed all Article III judges and chief probation officers regarding their experiences with and views of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines; this report presents the results of that survey.
Abstract
This report first discusses the broad areas of concern identified by respondents. This is followed by a description of specific areas of the sentencing guidelines in which respondents report a preference for changes. Next, the report describes areas about which respondents expressed less concern. The concluding section presents respondents' evaluations of several participants in the guideline sentencing process, including judges, chief probation officers, Federal public defenders, assistant U.S. attorneys, private defense attorneys, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and the Judicial Conference. Overall, responses did not reflect a groundswell of support for major overhaul of the guidelines. This might have been because, as some respondents noted, the questionnaire asked about many specific issues but did not focus on questions about the philosophical approach underlying the guidelines. On the other hand, where opportunities were provided for open-ended comment about the guidelines, more respondents commented positively about the guidelines than expressed opposition. Generally, chief probation officers were less supportive of change to the current guideline sentencing system than were judges. Appended questionnaires; questionnaire design, administration, and analysis; and detailed results for each item on the questionnaire and 16 tables