Assessing the Early Influence of the Model Penal Code’s Revised Sentencing Provisions

Klingele, Cecelia M.

Assessing the Early Influence of the Model Penal Code’s Revised Sentencing Provisions

This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing, edited by Michael Light and Ryan King due for publication in 2024.

18 Pages Posted: 4 Apr 2024

See all articles by Cecelia M. Klingele

Cecelia M. Klingele

University of Wisconsin Law School

Date Written: December 5, 2023

Abstract

In 2017, the American Law Institute completed a 15-year revision of the sentencing provisions of the Model Penal Code. This chapter examines early indicators of the revision’s influence in the five years following its adoption. It examines ways in which the provisions of the Model Penal Code: Sentencing (MPCS) appear to be influencing changes in law, both directly and indirectly, and concludes that the areas in which the MPCS has had the most immediate influence are those in which the Code leads, rather than follows, existing law. This suggests that, much like the original Code, the MPCS’s most helpful contribution may be the ways in which it is able to offer new ways of approaching sentencing and correctional challenges that do not require states to dramatically alter already-existing state legislation.

Keywords: Model Penal Code, sentencing, second look

JEL Classification: K14

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Klingele, Cecelia M., Assessing the Early Influence of the Model Penal Code’s Revised Sentencing Provisions (December 5, 2023). This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing, edited by Michael Light and Ryan King due for publication in 2024., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4747642