Four entities that have power over the sentencing process:   Legislator, Judges, Governor, and Prosecutor

The Martinsen report (1974) and the legislators Ideological Shift

The 1980’s Federal legislative reform movement truth in sentencing -- Sentencing Shift --

Federal legislation shaped state’s legislative sanctions

The transition from indeterminate sentencing to determinate sentencing “habitual offender laws”

Judicial discretion

Rehabilitation model (1950-1974) was challenged

Conservative response:

Racial discrimination in sentencing  

The prosecutor’s decision to go to trial or bargain away --  legal factors   

Extra-legal factors in the prosecutor’s decision to go to trial or bargain away -- 

29% (1,050,177) violent-crime arrests + 71% (2,571,122) property-crime arrests

Scaling to 100,000 arrests

Arrests                                                                                             Running Balance   

     100,000   Violent and property-crime arrests                                      100,000

       19,000    juveniles                                                             19%                  81,000 

       29,000   dismissed flimsy evidence                                29%                     52,000 

       14,000   plead guilty misdemeanor probation             14%                  38,000

       33,000   plead guilty felony probation                      33%             5,000

         2,000   Found Innocent - released                                  2%                       3,000 

         3,000   Found guilty – prison                                         3%                   -0-

Only 108,638 go to prison out of 3.6 million = 3% of arrestees get prison sentences