Federal Parole and Sentencing: A Report on the Present and Some Thoughts for the Future

Abstract

In the past fifteen years an almost unanimous consensus has developed over the need for sentencing reform. Critics have maintained that the unregulated discretion currently granted judges fosters extensive and unwarranted disparity in the treatment of like cases. Commentators have condemned indeterminate parole and sentencing procedures as morally unjustifiable, and as a cause of prison unrest. Underlying both these concerns is disillusionment with the rehabilitative ideal.