Federal Sentencing Guidelines

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The United States has an entire organization that sets the standard sentence times for various crimes that take place in the United States. Basically, these are pre-set prison or probation terms for certain crimes. They do not allow a judge to sentence a newly convicted individual for less than say 3 years in jail for Crime X. These laws have drawn a lot of criticism because there seems to be a bias towards crimes that occur less among the upper echelon of individuals. For example, being caught with crack cocaine is subject to a longer prison term than people caught with plain cocaine. As crack cocaine is more commonly found in less affluent areas, it is seen as a biased system.

Recently, the Supreme Court upheld, in two separate cases, two much more lenient sentences that brought the punishment imposed for crack cocaine much closer to the punishments given for the powdered form of cocaine and the punishment for selling drugs in general. The court felt that federal sentencing guidelines were too harsh. This decision is being seen as the Supreme Court giving the go-ahead to judges that want to impose more lenient terms on crack offenders. The decision by the Supreme Court came on the eve of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. This group sets the guidelines for various crimes.

In the first case, the Court upheld a sentence of probation, not prison time, for an Arizona man that admitted to selling Ecstasy while he was in college. The Court felt prison was unnecessary as the man is no longer in college. The federal guidelines called for a 3 year prison sentence for the crime.

In the second case, the Court upheld a sentence of 15 years in prison for a man caught with having a gun and crack cocaine in his car. While this may seem like a long sentence, the federal guidelines call for between 19 and 22 years in a penitentiary.

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, or the old ones at least, imposed a sentence 100 times harsher for being caught with crack cocaine than those caught with the same amount of powdered cocaine. The 100-to-1 ratio is seen as being racially biased because white people are generally caught with powdered cocaine and not white people are generally caught with crack cocaine.

The Bush Administration and its prosecutors favored longer prison sentences but respected the Court's decision. This decision gives permission for judges everywhere to issue a sentence that is less than the federal guideline. It makes the guidelines actual guidelines, not set in stone rules.

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