NCJ Number
100668
Date Published
1985
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This essay ethically evaluates the 1980 proposals of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, which recommends an offense and offender classification scheme as the means for implementing determinate sentencing.
Abstract
Under the Pennsylvania scheme, punitive sentencing derives from assessments of the offender's desert, measured in terms of the harm caused by the offense and offender's culpability. Opportunity for sentencing discretion that will produce arbitrary sentences unrelated to offender desert is minimized, but the sentencer still has the discretion to select from the options within a sentencing range. Ethical issues pertain to the classification scheme itself and to postclassification factors that permit sentencing discretion. The scheme itself must be ethically judged by the severity ranking given offenses compared to one another as well as the punitive options mandated for each ranking. Another issue is whether the scheme has encompassed all of the factors that should be considered in determining an offender's just desert. Ethical concerns at the postclassification sentencing phase are the legitimacy of the factors introduced to modify the guidelines, whether the degree of modification in a given case is defensible, and whether other postclassification factors ought to be introduced. 38 notes.