Punishment and Sentencing Alternatives

In the context of punishment, sentencing means the imposition of criminal penalties on defendants who have pled guilty or been found guilty at trial of one or more criminal offenses. For most crimes in most jurisdictions, the judge who receives the guilty plea or the finding of guilt makes the initial sentencing decision. However, subsequent decisions by the judge to revoke probation, or by correctional authorities to grant parole release, good-conduct credits, or temporary furlough, may have a substantial effect on the actual sentence carried out. Moreover, sentencing in the broadest sense often occurs before, or in lieu of, the judge's initial sentencing decision.

Police and prosecutors in all United States jurisdictions and in most Western nations have discretion to decline to charge offenders at all, or as fully as the law would allow. When they exercise this discretion, these officials are, in effect, exercising sentencing leniency that avoids or limits the formal sentencing powers of judges and the informal sentencing powers of correctional authorities. Similarly, when prosecutors and defendants engage in plea-bargaining negotiations, which typically involve recommendations or agreements as to the sentence or dismissal of charges, they are making sentencing decisions, directly or indirectly.

The most important dimensions of sentencing include the purpose or purposes of punishment underlying these decisions; the available sentencing alternatives (prison, fines, and so on); the legal structure limiting the judge's choice of alternatives and regulating the application of the sentence imposed (revocation of probation, release on parole, and so on); and the actual sentencing and punishment practices in a given jurisdiction. The choices among purposes, alternatives, and legal structures involve universal questions of justice and public policy that must be resolved in all legal systems. These choices raise issues of great importance given the potential severity of criminal penalties and the impact of crime on individual victims and the public. The choices actually made vary substantially across jurisdictions within the United States and in other Western nations and have evolved considerably over the past two centuries.