From The Sentencing Project:
Executive Summary
Although it is a widespread practice in the United States to increase criminal penalties for people with prior convictions, there is little evidence that this practice advances public safety.1 Research by the Robina Institute has
shown that state and federal sentencing guidelines dramatically increase sentence lengths based on individuals’ prior criminal records.2 This effect is even more pronounced for African Americans.3 Given the limited public safety benefits from criminal record “enhancements”4 and the accompanying harms to incarcerated individuals, their families, and communities — and the steep financial costs — this further lengthening of sentences should be reconfigured.5
Sentencing guidelines–frameworks developed in state and federal systems to standardize sentencing–are one mechanism by which criminal records increase criminal penalties, along with sentencing laws and the discretion of prosecutors and judges. This report examines how sentencing guidelines’ reliance on criminal records impacts already lengthy sentences—those that are 10 years or longer—in a sample of four states: Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington.6 The practice of relying on criminal records to prolong sentences of this
duration merits closer review given criminological evidence that criminal careers typically end within approximately 10 years 7. and recidivism rates fall measurably after about a decade of imprisonment.8
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