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The economics of sentencing guidelines: Evidence on federal fraud offenders

Posted on:1998-09-11Degree:Ph.DType:Dissertation
University:Yale UniversityCandidate:Meade, Jose AntonioFull Text:PDF
GTID:1466390014978260Subject:Law
Abstract/Summary:
Existing research shows a tendency toward efficiency in sentencing when judges have discretion over their choices of fines and prison terms. Guidelines place upper and lower limits on fines and prison terms and if binding, may change the way sentences are structured.;Using data on federal fraud offenders, we examine three questions in separate and free standing essays. First we examine whether the Guidelines were successful in reducing unjustified disparity. We find that variation in prison terms remaining after accounting for legitimate sentencing determinants decline with the imposition of the Guidelines. Second, we test whether sentencing decisions after the Guidelines continues to reflect a tendency towards using fines to economize on costly prison terms. We find that efficiency continues to be a powerful sentencing rationale. Finally, since Guidelines might prevent judges from substituting fines for prison terms we measure their efficiency cost. We find that the efficiency cost of guidelines reflect between 1.1 and 9.7 percent of total imprisonment costs.
Keywords/Search Tags:Guidelines, Sentencing, Prison, Efficiency, Fines
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