At the heart of the Sentencing Commission are the sentencing guidelines themselves. The Commission has significant other responsibilities such as research, sentence monitoring, evaluation, training, and serving as a clearinghouse of sentencing information. The Commission maintains a computerized data collection system to track application of the guidelines and provide support for other Commission activities. The data base primarily provides information relevant to broad patterns of Federal sentencing and guideline implementation rather than information on the sentencing decisions of particular judges, attorneys, or probation officers. The data base is intended to meet congressional reporting requirements and also to serve as an empirical basis for review and revision of sentencing guidelines and policy statements. In addition to its monitoring and reporting functions, the Commission conducts research on other criminal justice issues including recidivism, incapacitation, prison impact, and offense severity. Evaluation studies of the Commission focus on implementation of the sentencing guidelines, the use of incarceration, sentencing disparity, and prosecutorial discretion and plea bargaining. Commission publications and information dissemination procedures are noted. 5 footnotes