NCJ Number
173989
Date Published
1996
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This is an interim report of the Maryland Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy, which was charged by the 1996 Maryland legislature with evaluating the State's sentencing and correctional laws and policies.
Abstract
The Commission has approved a mission statement. Its mission is to promote sentencing that more accurately reflects the time that an offender will actually be incarcerated; concentrate prison capacity on the incarceration of violent and career offenders; reduce any unwarranted disparity in sentences for offenders who have committed similar offenses and have similar criminal histories; and preserve judicial discretion in the imposition of sentences and sufficient flexibility to permit individualized sentences. Further, the Commission's mission is to ensure that sentencing judges in every jurisdiction in the State are able to impose the most appropriate criminal penalties, as well as to ensure that the Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and local correctional administrators have the authority to place appropriate offenders under their jurisdiction into correctional options and to remove offenders from those options. In addition to providing the Commission's mission statement, this interim report presents consensus statements by the Commission drafted as initial findings derived from its research and deliberations. The Commission work to further the goals of the mission statement has to date reflected the testimony of leading scholars, legal experts, and researchers who have addressed the Commission on four principal areas: prison capacity use, public perception of sentencing and sentencing disparity, Maryland's existing sentencing guidelines, and sentencing guidelines in other jurisdictions. Future work is also discussed. Appended inmate population projections and planned operating capacity, an article on sentencing disparity, guideline comparison, and sentencing in a sample armed robbery case