The Evolution of Sentencing Commissions and Guidelines

Abstract This chapter documents the emergence and subsequent proliferation of sentencing commissions from the establishment of the first in Minnesota and Pennsylvania in 1978 to the nearly 50 commissions that have been proposed, established, or disbanded worldwide since. It describes the justifications for the creation of commissions, starting with Judge Marvin Frankel’s critique of America’s ‘lawless’ sentencing system. It then examines the introduction of guidelines in various jurisdictions and summarizes the origins of the two principal approaches to sentencing guidelines—grid based and narrative. It discusses the concepts of commissions and guidelines and objections to these reforms as well as commissions which have failed. It concludes that sentencing commissions are still an evolving institution that is an adaptable response to some fundamental problems which face all sentencing systems.