Doing Justice in Sentencing

Abstract

Anyone who would read a paper on this subject or with this title knows that sentences received by people convicted of crimes in American courts, especially serious ones, are much too often cruelly severe, racially disparate, and reflective more of a prosecutor’s or judge’s idiosyncrasies than of a reasoned assessment of what considerations of justice concerning this offense by this person require or permit. The process is ultimately casual, as if invasive intrusion into someone’s life is a matter of no great importance. To people sentenced, their families, and others who love them it is devastatingly important. Relatively simple ideas about justice, fairness, equality, and parsimony provide a framework to replace contemporary casual justice with a jurisprudence that takes human dignity seriously.

JEL Classification: K14