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Sentencing Reforms in Historical Perspective

It is the purpose of this essay not only to trace the series of stages that sentencing practices have moved through in this country since the beginning of the nineteenth century but to analyze the elements fostering change. The discussion will open with a chronological presentation of the history of sentencing and then move to explore several substantive themes that emerge from this history. It appears that sentencing procedures have traditionally been called upon to bear too heavy a burden in criminal justice. Sentencing reform has tended to minimize the impact of informal mechanisms upon actual practice. It may also be that the search for mathematical precision in sentencing is a symptom of the almost overwhelming current confusion about the purposes of sentencing. The analysis of change presented here argues too that the general public appears to have exerted little influence upon the adoption or revision of sentencing procedures. Finally, there is some reason to anticipate that the determinate sentence movement will not take firm hold in the near future, that it will not replace the Progressive indeterminate sentencing procedures.

Crime & Delinquency, Vol. 29, No. 4, 631-647 (1983)
DOI: 10.1177/001112878302900409


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