Sentencing Essay

When imposing legal sanctions we must consider the criminal act committed. The importance of this consideration lies in fact that the punishment should fit the crime. We would not want to sentence a child to life imprisonment for stealing a candy bar any more than we would we want to sentence someone convicted of murder to six months community supervision. Granted, these examples are extreme; however, they do help to make sense of proportionality and how it affects sentencing.

The truth-in-sentencing law eliminates or restricts inmates from being eligible for parole and receiving good-time credits (Ditton & Wilson, 1999). Through the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 the United States’ Congress authorized funding to build more jails and state prisons (Ditton & Wilson, 1999). In 1998 twenty seven states, as well as, the District of Columbia received incentive grants for meeting the eligibility criteria for their Truth-in-Sentencing programs (Ditton & Wilson, 1999). The last three decades of sentencing reform includes: indeterminate sentencing, determinate sentencing, mandatory minimum sentences, sentencing guidelines, and truth-in-sentencing (Ditton & Wilson, 1999).

Federal statutory mandatory minimum penalties have existed since the early days of the nation,1 and they have continually evolved in the centuries since. As policy views have shifted over time, Congress2 and many others3 have continued to examine the role and scope of these mandatory minimum penalties in the federal criminal system.4 For more than thirty years, the United States Sentencing Commission (“the Commission”)5 has played a central role in this process, working with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government and other interested parties to ensure that sentencing policy promotes the goals of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (“SRA”).6 Consistent with its statutory role,7 the Commission has continued to inform the

Mandatory sentencing laws state that a mandatory sentence must be imposed regardless of a person's role in the crime or other mitigating factors. Prosecutors, not judges, have the discretion to decide what charge to bring; whether to accept or deny a plea bargain. Mandatory sentencing is defined as: a sentence determined by statutes and requiring that a certain penalty be

Punishments authorized by U.S. law may include community service, monetary fines, Forfeiture of property, restitution to victims, confinement in jail or prison, and death. Governments have several theories to support the use of punishment to maintain order in society. Both legislators and judges determine punishment. Legislators identify the range of punishments that a court may impose for a certain crime on the victim that committed the crime. Punishment for crimes is listed in federal, state, and local laws. In most cases statutes name a variety of punishments appropriate for the crime, and courts have to make a decision in determining the precise punishment for the committed crime. Some acts have always been illegal, but the level of punishment inflicted for the crime has fluctuated depending on the social class of the

The Federal Sentencing guidelines are used to determine the amount of time an individual will receive for committing a federal crime. The judge will look at various components to determine the amount of time a defendant shall receive. The judge will look at a person’s criminal history, by looking at a person’s criminal history the judge will be able to determine a range for the amount of months a person should receive. If the defendant is a first time offender, then they will receive less time than someone who is a repeat offender. Previous criminal history is important because it help judges see how these individuals respond to crime once they have done it, it help determine patterns and trends within criminals. The more criminal history someone

In the United States, the sentencing model has changed several times over the course of 100 years (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). A sentencing model is composed of strategies for implementing sanctions in criminal cases. Currently, judges have far less ability to use their own discretion when determining sentencing for offenders as compared to earlier judges in the United States. There are guidelines in place today that instruct judges on how to issue sentences. Early on in the United States guidelines for sentencing were experimented with, they were referred to as voluntary guidelines because they were not a requirement of the laws at the time. Those guidelines failed due largely because judges at the time ignored them.

There are five different categories of sentencing Del Carmen (2012) begins to name them and explain the precise goals they target as well as the objectives they accomplish. Beginning with the death penalty, it is the most harsh form of punishment in the sentencing field. It sentences individuals that had committed a capitol murder or any other major crime to death. The next type of sentence would be imprisonment. Imprisonment is a type of sentence that is split up into two subcategories which are jail and prison. Prison is an ideal punishment for all felony offenders in which incarcerates the inmate for a fixed amount of time ranging from a year to eternity. Jail is an ideal place for misdemeanor offenders who could be incarcerated for a maximum

The four main goals of the criminal sanction in the United States are retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. Carried out through incarceration, intermediate sanctions, probation, and death are goals of the criminal sanction. Penal codes differ if the permitted sentences are indeterminate, determinate, or mandatory. Each sentence has an assumption about the criminal sanction. Judges consider discretion in fashioning sentences for factors of the crime, the offenders aggravating circumstances. They sentence people by their attitude, what they did before the court date and the value of the judges. The system may treat wrongdoers unequally because of racial discrimination.

ASIC submitted the appropriate penalty for each contravention which ended up being $130,000. The court ordered that Mr Vizard spend penalties in the number of $390,000, but noted who would include enforced a larger penalty in the event that 'left uninstructed'. Importantly, Justice Finkelstein noted that the current highest penalty volume of $200,000 for each contravention was in location for greater than 13 years and could require evaluate by Parliament.

Take note of that a criminal case may include both correctional facility time and fiscal disciplines as fines.

Collateral Consequences is a phrase coined to weighing out the side effects of criminally charging a person or corporation in comparison to not charging these entities. It is used in the context of corporations and the legal and criminal ramifications of their fraudulent actions. Holder, the creator of this concept, states that “one of the factors in determining whether to charge a natural person or a corporation is whether the likely punishment is appropriate given the seriousness of the crime”. Furthermore, he explains, “In the corporate context, prosecutors may take into the possibly substantial consequences to a corporation’s officers, directors, employees and shareholders, many of whom may, depending on the size and nature of the corporation

There were three tiers of financial penalties which depend on the type of violation and the severity. Tier one fines an individual up to $5,000 and up to $50,000 for institutions or the gross amount of pecuniary gain. Tier two fines an individual up to $50,000 and up to $250,000 for institutions or the gross amount of pecuniary gain. This tier mainly deals with violations relating to fraud, deceit, manipulation or intentional negligence of a regulatory requirement. Tier three fines an individual up to $100,000 and up to $500,000 for an institution or the gross amount of pecuniary gain. This tier mainly involves violations similar to those of tier two but also resulted in causing substantial losses to someone else. Originally, financial penalties

According to the policy if the violation itself results in an economic gain for the individual and/or a loss to the bank, the amount of the gained will be required to be paid back as part of the penalty given. For banks, the penalties are issued in tiers and range from Tier 1 to Tier 3. The first Tier is if they are violating any laws, regulations, regulatory orders, or agreements with a regulatory agency, the penalty is up to five thousand per day of violation. Tier 2 would include the violations that cause more than a minimal loss to the victim or a financial gain to the violator. This tier has penalties up to $25,000 per day of violation. The final tier, Tier 3, which includes violations that are knowingly committed that also cause a considerable loss to the victim or a considerable gain to the violator. The penalties for this tier can go up to $1,000,000 per day and can increase to $1,425,000 per day. (“Section 14.1”

Individual fines can be imposed on the individual agents who actually engaged in the anticompetitive conduct, perhaps through a cap imposed on their annual benefits so there is some form of individual accountability. This however is likely to have the most insignificant deterrent effect out of all forms of individual sanctions. When individual fines are imposed there is always a possibility of indemnification, ultimately taking away from the deterrent effect. A company may compensate the individual in advance of the breach once they have weighted the risk against the cost, or alternatively they may indemnify them ex post once the infringement has actually taken place. With imprisonment for example, there is no