Indeterminate Sentences

• Indeterminate sentencing was predominantly used to sentence criminals until the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, there was an increase in the crime rate, which resulted in many states experimenting with sentencing guidelines to try to keep criminals off the streets or rehabilitate them. Federal sentencing guidelines were established when Congress directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to stop using rehabilitation as a goal of sentencing, to create sentencing guidelines and to make federal sentences determinate.
  
  

Uniformity

• When the sentencing guidelines were established in the mid-1970s, there was great discrepancy among the states and federal courts of sentencing for criminal acts. The purpose of the guidelines was to remove some of the judge’s discretion that is permitted in the federal rule of civil procedure with regard to sentencing. The guidelines were intended to establish uniformity across the states for sentencing of defendants for similar crimes.
  
  

Predictability

• Before the guidelines were introduced, sentencing for criminal acts varied according to the judges in the federal judiciary. The guidelines made it easier to predict the outcome for certain offenses.
  
  

Moral Judgments

• Sentencing guidelines remove the moral judgment or philosophy of judges by establishing uniformity. The guidelines also create and encourage judicial accountability by limiting excessive prison terms or permitting criminals to easily avoid a prison term for a crime that another judge or defendant received a different sentence.
  
  

Costs

• With varying sentences for similar crimes, it was difficult for correctional facilities to forecast what the cost of housing criminals would be. If a state knows that it has roughly the same percentage of a certain crime every year or that a crime is escalating at a certain rate every year, state leaders can forecast what the cost of the prison system would be over the next year or more. Varying degrees of sentencing, on the other hand, forced the correctional facilities budgeting to be more reactive to the needs of prisoners than proactive in terms of forecasting the number of prisoners.
  
  

Criticism

• The sentencing guidelines have been criticized for their punishment of less serious offenses, leading to the overcrowding of prisons. For example, in 2004 the number of admissions to federal prisons exceeded the number of releases by more than 8,000. As of 2010, the federal prison population has tripled since the institution of the guidelines. The criticism has been mostly directed at the hefty sentences for relatively low-level drug offenses. Another criticism has been that the guidelines permitted a judge to add time to a sentence based on evidence that a jury did not hear.