NCJ Number
76201
Date Published
1980
Length
58 pages
Annotation
Activities involved in the development of a statistically based sentencing guideline model for use in the Clayton County Superior Criminal Court (Georgia) are reported.
Abstract
The guidelines were expected to include both social and offense information and provide a structure for reducing potential disparity in future felony sentencing decisions of the court. A step-by-step outline of the stages necessary to develop, test, and implement the sentencing guideline system is included. Among the tasks discussed are the development of a coding manual, the selection of a sample of cases for coding, the actual coding and verification process, data analysis and model development, and the testing and validation of the guidelines model and subsequent implementation. For the collection of case data and sentencing information, two data collection instruments were developed: the Case Data Collection Sheet was designed so that court staff could record sentencing information on each case, and the Sentencing Questionnaire was prepared so that representatives of the local legal community could record their rankings of the relative seriousness of various offense and offender characteristics. These and the following materials developed during the course of the technical assistence are included: the coding manual, recommended strategies for developing guidelines, and instructions for analyzing questionnaire responses.