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Indeterminate & Structured Sentencing

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Indeterminate & Structured Sentencing
Indeterminate &Structured Sentencing To me Indeterminate Sentencing is a very degraded and/or very disturbed type of sentencing. In this sentencing a legislature is the one who has say as to what the terms will be for the crime that has been committed and a judge gets the decision as to what the sentence will be for the offender. As I look at this information I feel that the judge should have a say in what the sentence will be, but not have all the power as to what it will be. A Parole Board gets to determine as to what the amount of time is that the offender will spend in prison for the crime he or she has committed. In this type of sentencing, one of the guidelines is that when determining the sentence it should meet all of the needs of the offender.
Another is the Good Time Laws, which reduces his or her sentence if they have had good behavior while he or she has served time in prison. For Example, an offender might have received a sentence of a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 20 years, but the exact number of years to be served would be determined by the prisoner’s progress toward rehabilitation (CJ 2010 Textbook Pg 140). This type of sentencing also gave not just the judges power, but also gave the prison authorities extensive power. This would mean that in reality it would not be the judge to determine the term of the sentence but it would be in fact the prison authorities that determined the term of the sentence. Prison Authorities could in fact with reason exercise this power with little or no supervision.
A Pro of Indeterminate Sentencing if that it allows for discretion to adjust the length of the sentence to fit the individual circumstances (CJ 2010 Textbook Pg.139). A Con is that it can result in intentional and unintentional discrimination sentences from judge to judge that may vary so much as to appear as unfair (CJ 2010 Textbook Pg. 139). In this type of sentencing the judge has the greatest power to decide what the sentence will be for
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