U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Sentencing Practices Under the Sentencing Reform Act, Fiscal Year 1987

NCJ Number
118186
Author(s)
D L Fallen
Date Published
1987
Length
103 pages
Annotation
This report evaluates felony sentences under the Washington State Sentencing Reform Act (SRA) for fiscal year 1987.
Abstract
These sentencing practices are compared to the State's first year's experience under the SRA, as well as pre-SRA (fiscal year 1982) baseline data gathered by the Sentencing Guidelines Commission. Violent offenses continued to have a higher imprisonment rate than under pre-SRA sentencing practices. Sentencing consistency has been significantly increased under the SRA. The variability of sentence lengths for offenders with identical offender scores and seriousness levels was 47 percent less than in 1982. Judges imposed a guideline sentence in the vast majority of cases. Only 3.6 percent of sentences were exceptional sentences. Nearly half of all offenders qualified for the first-time offender waiver, and of these, 40 percent were sentenced under this provision. The distribution of crimes within the offense seriousness levels was somewhat elevated compared to 1985 and appears related to the drug enforcement initiatives. There were 1,776 fewer inmates in prison as of June 1987 than there would have been under the prior indeterminate sentencing system. There was a lower rate of jury trials and a higher rate of guilty pleas in 1987 relative to 1982. 45 tables, 12 figures.