Determinate Sentencing

The purpose of sentencing: the “deserved infliction of suffering on evildoers and “the prevention of crime.” There four fundamental philosophies surrounding the purpose of sentencing. First, the oldest and most common is retribution. Retribution is the philosophy that those who commit criminal acts should be punished based on the severity of the crime and that no other factors need be considered. The second philosophy is deterrence. In deterrence, the goal of sentencing is to prevent future crimes. Deterrence takes a general and specific form. General deterrence is that by punishing one person, others will be dissuaded from committing a similar crime. Specific deterrence assumes thart an individual, after being punished once for a certain act,
An indeterminate sentencing is a term of incarceration in which a judge determines the minimum and maximum terms of imprisonment. When the minimum term is reached, the prisoner becomes eligible to be paroled. A judge can prescribe a particular term, after which an administrative body known as the parole board decides at what point the offender is to be released. A prisoner is aware that he or she is eligible for parole as soon as the minimum time has been served and that good behavior can further shorten the sentence.In determinate sentencing, a period of incarceration that is fixed by a sentencing authority and cannot be reduced by judges or other corrections officials. If the legislature deems that the punishment for a first-time armed robber is ten years, then the judge has no choice but to impose a sentence of ten years and the criminal will serve ten years minus good time before being freed. In good times sentencing, a reduction in time served by prisoners based on good behavior, conformity to rules, and ther positive actions. In truth-in-sentencing laws, legislative attempts to assure that convicts will serve approximately the terms to whinch they were initially sentenced. The sentencing ritual strongly lends itself to the concept of individualized justice. Most judges consider two factors above all others: the seriousness of the crime and any mitigating or aggravating
Ehrlich's work appeared in the midst of an unpopular moratorium on capital punishment imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, and was extensively debated not only in the U.S. but across Western European countries considering abolition of capital punishment. Ehrlich analyzed murder and execution trends from 1933 to 1967, using what at that time were innovative regression techniques. Although Ehrlich placed many caveats and cautions on his estimates, the core claim of deterrence through execution had the impact of a sound bite, a bumper sticker, and an advertising slogan rolled into one. His work sparked heated controversy in professional journals, the popular press, and the polity. Several scholars raised serious doubts about the validity of Ehrlich's claims, including a devastating critique published in 1978 by a National Research Council panel on deterrence. Despite this criticism, Ehrlich's article was cited by the U.S. Solicitor General in Gregg v. Georgia, the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that restored capital punishment after the brief four-year ban.