NCJ Number
96534
Journal
Judicature Volume: 68 Issue: 4-5 Dated: (October-November 1984) Pages: 181-189
Date Published
1984
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This discussion considers the structural features established by the Minnesota Legislature that facilitated successful guidelines development and implementation.
Abstract
It also describes the sentencing guidelines that were developed by the commission and examines the impact of the guidelines during the first 3 years of their operation. The legislature included five structural features in its reform mechanism, each of which contributed to successful development and implementation: legislative oversight, a broadly representative sentencing guidelines commission, appellate review of sentences, coordination of sentencing and correctional policies, and sentence monitoring. The guidelines were designed to increase proportionality and uniformity in sentencing. Sentencing practices substantially conformed to the articulated sentencing policy during 1981; there was a 73-percent increase in the imprisonment of offenders with low criminal histories convicted of serious person offenses and a 72-percent reduction of the imprisonment of offenders with moderate to high criminal histories convicted of property offenses. To some extent sentencing practices reverted to earlier patterns in 1982 and 1983. The dispositions in 1982 and 1983 were still more uniform than dispositions prior to the guidelines, but the level of dispositional uniformity in imprisonment decreased somewhat from that found in 1981. A sentencing guidelines grid and eight footnotes are included.