Sentencing guidelines help make sure that judges and magistrates in courts across USA take a consistent approach to sentencing. The Sentencing Code states that the courts must follow any relevant sentencing guidelines, unless it is contrary to the interests of justice to do so.
Sentencing guidelines for criminal sexual conduct provide guidance on factors the court should take into account that may affect the sentence. They set out different levels of sentence based on the harm caused to the victim and how blameworthy the offender is. Offenses happen in many different ways with many different results. So it is necessary for the courts to have a range of sentences available that appropriately reflect the seriousness of each individual offense.
Sentencing guidelines systems can typically be characterized by one or more of the following goals and purposes:
Rational and Consistent Sentencing Standards: Sentencing decisions should be well-reasoned, and based on clearly-articulated sentencing standards that are consistently used by the judiciary in sentencing.
When sentencing is implemented uniformly, as under sentencing guidelines, the resulting sentences are fairly predictable and jurisdictions can begin to use that information to forecast and manage correctional resources. By tracking both recommended guidelines sentences and actual sentencing decisions, a jurisdictions can create a rich data set from which it can develop a long-term forecasting model or gauge the impact of pending legislation or guidelines modifications.
Prior to the creation and development of sentencing guidelines, all states had a system of indeterminate sentencing. Under that system, the legislature defined criminal conduct and established high maximum sentences. Judges had almost complete discretion to impose any sentence up to the statutory maximum, and rather than pronounce a sentence with a specified prison term, the court would pronounce a range of time (e.g., 0-10 years).
Parole boards had broad discretion to determine how much of any prison sentence had to be served. Indeterminate sentencing then, was a system in which the sentence was not fixed; rather it was subject to discretion at many points such that the true sentence could not be known until it had been fully served. Moreover, sentences for similarly situation offenders could vary.
