After 40 Years of Sentencing Guidelines, Should There be 40 More?

Abstract In 1980, Minnesota created the first system of sentencing guidelines developed and monitored by an independent sentencing commission. In the following decades, many other states, Washington, D.C., and the federal courts adopted some form of commission-based guidelines. This chapter explains how guideline sentencing came about, and what purposes of punishment underlie this kind of sentencing reform. It also examines the similarities and differences among the 19 state and federal guidelines systems that were in effect as of December 2022. The chapter assesses the pros and cons of this form of structured sentencing and argues that even the best versions of guidelines need further reforms.