Officials' Reactions to Sentencing Guidelines

Abstract

The present study reports data from a mail survey on the Minnesota felony sentencing guidelines given to a statewide sample of 200 criminal court judges, prosecutors, and public defenders. While the study is primarily a description of the attitudes and experiences of these officials, we show that officials' opposition to sentencing guidelines does not necessarily dissipate through time, varies according to their occupational status, and argue that the level of opposition may actually be indicative of the effectiveness of the guidelines in achieving their explicit objectives. The article concludes with a discussion of the utility of a survey approach to supplement empirical data on actual sentencing practices and the implication of our findings for other states considering the adoption of sentencing guidelines.