When prosecutors seek various sentences at trial, their choice of sentence is not arbitrary. While certain laws and statutes mandate specific sentences, the US Sentencing Commission’s sentencing guidelines determine the majority of punishments handed out by prosecutors. Every year, the Commission reviews their guidelines and publishes their primary priorities for the coming twelve months.

Broadly, their focus for the year is to minimize the financial impact of incarceration and reduce prison populations for the ultimate aim of eliminating prison overcrowding. The Commission will continue to review and ensure that all guidelines adhere to the rulings set forth by United States v Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). This review will balance the desire for contextualized, case-by-case sentencing with the need for uniformity so as to avoid blatant disparities between sentences from near identical cases.

For the last two years, Congress and the Commission worked together on refining prosecutor’s approach to career offenders. This work will continue by establishing an industry standard of “crime of violence” to help prosecutors more accurately assess the nature of a career offenders’ recidivism. This clear cut standard for violent crime will also help the Commission determine the best way for prosecutors to delineate between violent crime and drug crime when the two overlap. This would allow courts to look more holistically at the perpetrator’s actions instead of primarily examining the structural elements of the crime.

Most notably, they will continue to consider “the elimination of the mandatory ‘stacking’ of penalties” as part of its larger review of the effectiveness of mandatory minimum penalties. This coincides with their continued examination of reducing sentence lengths and how that affects those imprisoned under mandatory minimum laws.

The Commission declined to investigate further into two of their preliminary suggested priorities. They turned down further inquiry into compassionate release policies, citing lack of sufficient data to help suggest specific sentencing reforms. They also declined to develop further work on the ways in which family responsibilities should be factored into sentencing. Currently, family provisions in the sentencing guidelines only go as far as to give guidance if the defendant is the primary caretaker of the family. Any changes to the sentencing guidelines will be announced next spring.

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