Sentencing Outcomes Under Competing But Coexisting Sentencing Interventions: Untying The Gordian Knot

The latest evolutionary phase of criminal sentencing is a return to determinate sentencing structures. However, the concurrent application of sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum statutes in various jurisdictions often distorts and convolutes evaluations of such interventions’ effectiveness. To remedy this problem, the effects of such distinct reforms must be separated from one another. Previous research has been unsuccessful in accomplishing this task. The authors attempt to remedy this deficiency by using 1997-1998 federal sentencing data to isolate the effects of the minima from those of the guidelines and assessing how the predictors and conditioners of sentencing outcomes vary between them. The authors find several significant and some unexpected differences in the effect of predictors across models of incarceration and sentence length for the two intervention type