The Committee for the Study of Incarceration
The Committee for the Study of Incarceration holds that the seriousness of the crime done and the degree of the offender's moral culpability should be the only criteria used to determine the severity of a sentence for a crime. The use of alternatives to prison should follow the proportionality concept. The penalty for a first offense should be less harsh than the punishment for a second offense. This plan may have an impact on judges' sentencing discretion because it would require them to impose a statutorily set sentence on each offender found guilty of a specific crime, regardless of any other mitigating circumstances. Judges will be guided in choosing sentences based on the severity and type of crime, other factors about the offenders like age and intent and whether an offender is a first time or subsequent convict.
The Determinacy of Sentences
The determinacy of sentences will be affected by this proposal because sentencing options will be enhanced and time-served requirements considered. This proposal may be viewed as a scaling back of the expected benefits of criminal sentencing because it affects the initial purpose of sentencing as a punishment for wrongdoing. A system of presumptive sentences would operate by taking prescriptions instead of being descriptive. The dimension forming the columns in the proposed sentencing grid will be the criminal history score while the dimension forming the rows will be seriousness of the offense. The proposed change in determinacy of sentences is asserted to be an improvement because it considers other factors that were not considered in the previous methods. The proposal is likely to reduce the length of sentences.
Justice Model
The assumptions about criminals according to the justice model are that they should be treated fairly instead of being rehabilitated and that the criminal performs the crime individually. The groups that were considered supporters of the Justice model were mainly organizations that champion for the rights of prisoners because they saw the model as a chance for them to be treated fairly. According to the justice model, criminals should be controlled through rehabilitation. According to this model, justice and fairness are an aspiration that insists that probation and all agencies of criminal justice systems perform their assigned roles with law violators lawfully. The criticisms of the justice model are that it has not yet changed the basic course of the criminal justice system and that it has not stopped reoffending.
Sentencing Reforms: Simple Theory, Hard Reality
The empirical evidence from interrupted time-series quasi-experiments about the impact of sentencing reforms on incarceration rates in 46 states shows a success rate of a fifth of the total cases. For the majority of the implementing states in the study, the lack of sentencing reform impacts on courts was apparent. Based on the 9 conclusions, the "get tough on crime" sentencing reforms of mandatory sentencing did not have the intended effect. Instead of the changes in sentencing behavior to comply with procedural requirements being compliance in substance, they were compliance in form. There was no specific type of sentencing reforms which showed the ability to achieve a substantial level of internal support for the reform or to develop and utilize credible monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
According to table 7.2, the impact of sentencing reforms on the rates of the 4 violent crime types was that only a few states experienced a significant reduction in the 4 violent crimes. The crimes remain unaffected by sentencing reforms in most of the remaining states. The empirical evidence from pooled time-series quasi-experiments shows that sentencing reforms on courts, prisons, and violent criminals are unlikely to make imprisonment more certain. The reforms did not deter violent crimes in the country. Wicharaya offers reasons to explain why the sentencing reforms failed. First, it is naïve to assume that a statute can turn judges into mindless robots who can be programmed to do what the legislators tell them to do with strict obedience. Secondly, sentencing standards do not cover all the nuances of situation, intent, and social harm that condition the gravity of particular criminal acts. The third reason is that it is politically attractive to increase instead of decrease the length of sentences. About the courtroom work group and its impact on sentencing reform, Wicharaya offers the conclusion that sentencing reforms have produced undesirable but inevitable side effects that require immediate and innovative remedies. They cause resistance to change among wrongdoers.
Just Desserts Crime Policy
Wicharaya concludes that Just Desserts crime policy was based on deterrence theory, but it failed. He concludes that though it is a "simple theory, it is a hard reality." This theory based on false assumptions that judges and others in the court community would strictly adhere to the laws, making a prison sentence more certain and lengthier and that criminals are rational persons deterred by swift, certain, and severe punishments actually applied. Two lessons learned from the theory are that we have little knowledge about how court community systems behave in response to policy innovations and that the dynamics of court community systems can produce policy outcomes that are sometimes inefficacious, unanticipated, or detrimental.
Conclusion
If I were to meet the theorist who came up with the "Just Desserts" model, I would ask them if they thought it was affecting in controlling criminal activities or if they feel that some modifications should be made to ensure that it is effective. I would ask them what they intend to do about the criticisms of the model to ensure that they become strengths.
