In 1976 the New York State Parole Board began its work on the development of guidelines with the assistance of a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. The purpose of the guidelines is to provide an explicit statement of the board's paroling policies by identifying the major decisionmaking criteria and indicating the customary range of time to be served for various categories of inmates based on the seriousness of the offense and the prior criminal record. the guidelines became effective on January 1, 1978. The format and structure of the interim guidelines were modeled after the Federal Parole Guidelines, with the important exception that the notion of using an empirically derived prediction device was rejected. The three major components of the guidelines model were offense severity, prior criminal history, and normative time served in prison. The seven-level offense severity scale consisted of offense descriptions which included specific aggravating factors related to the degree of physical injury sustained by the victim, weapon use, and the value of property lost. The ordering of offenses was derived from analysis of various offense severity scaling exercises. The prior criminal history scale consisted of prior convictions, prior incarcerations, prior prison terms, and whether the present offense was committed while on probation or parole. Because the interim guidelines were deemed overly sujective after brief experience with their application to specific cases, appropriate revisions were made. Analysis of initial release decisions under the new guidelines was conducted, but no definitive conclusions can be drawn because the data upon which the results were based over only a 6-month period. In addition, the guidelines may be revised further. Finally, the decision results do not take into account the impact of board member attitudes. Two tables and an appended memorandum are provided. (Author abstract modified)