Sentencing Reform and Parole Release Guidelines

Although parole release guidelines have achieved many of the advantages of determinate sentencing, they raise troublesome issues. Subject to important caveats, the author maintains that sentencing guidelines can better be administered by courts than by parole boards. He also maintains that current federal parole guidelines unfairly disregard plea bargained charge reductions, and that the construction of equitable guidelines requires detailed offense-by-offense and situation-by-situation studies that have not yet been undertaken