Unprincipled Punishment: The U.S. Sentencing Commission's Troubling Silence About the Purposes of Punishment

Abstract

Introduction 1044 I. The Modern Sentencing Reform Movement 1049 A. The Goals of Sentencing Reform 1049 B. The Sentencing Reform Act 1054 II. Sentencing Reform and the Purposes of Punishment 1057 A. Moral Principle and the Nature of Sentencing Purposes 1060 1. Utilitarianism 1061 2. Retribution 1063 B. The Inseparability of Policy Goals and Punishment Purposes 1065 C. Conflicts among Punishment Purposes 1071 III. The Institution of Principle 1078 A. The Rhetoric of the Empirical Approach ........1079 B. The Empirical Approach Reconsidered 1085 IV. The Need for a Public Statement of Purposes ......1092 A. Sentencing Disparity Revisited 1095 B. Sentencing Severity Revisited 1099 1. Disciplining the Commission 1099 2. Principles and Politics 1102 V. Potential Criticism 1108 A. Incompletely Theorized Agreements 1108 B. The “Common Law” Approach 1113