TY  - JOUR
AU  - Meade,Jose
AU  - Waldfogel,Joel
TI  - Do Sentencing Guidelines Raise the Cost of Punishment?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6361
PY  - 1998
Y2  - January 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6361
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6361.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joel Waldfogel
Frederick R. Kappel Chair in Applied Economics
3-177 Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
321 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Tel: 612/626-7128
E-Mail: jwaldfog@umn.edu
AB  - When judges have discretion over fines and prison terms, sentencing exhibits a tendency" toward efficiency: fines are larger, and prison terms shorter, for offenders with greater ability to" pay.  Sentencing guidelines place fairly rigid upper and lower limits on fines and prison terms" and may inhibit the achievement of efficiency in sentencing. Preventing judges from substituting" fines for prison terms may raise the cost of imposing punishment. The objective of this paper is" to measure the efficiency cost of sentencing guidelines using data on federal offenders sentenced" under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.  We find evidence that the guidelines raise the cost of" punishment by nearly 5 percent of the total imprisonment cost of federal offenders.  Not" surprisingly, constraints  on cost minimization raise costs.
ER  -