Monday, May 17, 2021

Better Sentencing Data

Law enforcement analysts and police agencies are not the only ones in the criminal justice system suffering from poor quality of data.

"NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Judge Pierre Bergeron and Justice Michael Donnelly on the lack of sentencing data available to judges, leaving them with power to make often inequitable decisions."

"How long must someone who's committed a crime spend in prison? What's a reasonable sentence to hand down? What's fair? Those are calls that judges across the country make each and every day, and they do so without the benefit of what would seem to be a basic, obvious tool. In many states, courts lack a comprehensive database on criminal sentences, meaning that judges are often left to their own devices to figure it out. Ohio Court of Appeals Judge Pierre Bergeron and Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly argue in The Atlantic magazine that better sentencing data could make meaningful reform to the criminal justice system."

Listen to or read the transcript of the interview 2 Judges On How Better Sentencing Data Could Make Meaningful Criminal Justice Reform at this link.

Read The Atlantic article How a Spreadsheet Could Change the Criminal-Justice System:
A lack of data instills trial-court judges with enormous, largely unrestrained sentencing power at this link.

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