Criminal sentencing in the United States

In some states, a judge will sentence criminals to an indeterminate amount of time in prison for certain crimes. This period is often between 1 and 3 years (on the short end) and 5–50 years on the upper end. The legislature generally sets a short, mandatory minimum sentence that an offender must spend in prison (e.g. one-third of the minimum sentence, or one-third of the high end of a sentence). The parole board then sets the actual date of prison release, as well as the rules that the parolee must follow when released.

During a long sentence, an offender can take full advantage of the programs that the prison has, including rehab for drug abuse or alcohol abuse, anger management, mental health, and so on, so when the offender completes the rehab or program he may be released upon request from authorities with a lower risk of recidivism. This process tries to combat the tendency of prisoners leaving incarceration after a long sentence to go back to offending in short order, without any attempt at correcting their ways.

Those given short sentences usually serve the full-time (do "day-for-day") as imposed by the judge, or might receive time off for good behavior, based on state or local rules and regulations.

In the mid-1970s, most state and federal prisons moved from long term to short term sentencing. Over time, though, state and federal authorities have gradually migrated their philosophies back toward long-term sentences. Many states use a mixture of the two; e.g., some offenders may receive sentences reduced by several months due to rehabilitation, counseling, and other programs, as well as good time.

Since the 1840s, many jurisdictions, including the federal courts, have adopted a practice of having a probation officer prepare a presentence investigation report to inform the court as to the defendant's characteristics, including his criminal record, if any. In the 1970s, the length of incarceration had increased in response to the rising of crime rates in the United States. By the 1980s, state legislatures began to reduce judicial discretion in sentencing terms and conditions. This was especially true in cases of life imprisonment, which between 1992 and 2003 increased by 83% due to the implementation of three strikes laws. Short term sentencing, mandatory minimums, and guideline-based sentencing began to remove the human element from sentencing. They also required the judge to consider the severity of a crime in determining the length of an offender's sentence.

The United States does not have a specific guideline to sentencing murderers, including serial killers. When a killer is apprehended, he will be charged with murder, and if convicted can get life in prison or receive the death penalty, depending on in which state the murders took place. Generally speaking, each victim of a murder will merit a separate charge of murder against the offender, and as such, the killer could get a life sentence, a death sentence, or some other determinate or indeterminate sentence based upon the number of murders, the evidence presented, and any aggravating or mitigating circumstances present. Such a compounded sentence may be tailored to run consecutively, with one sentence beginning after completion of another, or concurrently, where all or most of several sentences is served together.

Below are several examples of how a murderer may be sentenced, by state:

Throughout the history of the Criminal Justice System in the United States, women have been held responsible for only 20 percent of total crime.[13] Despite only committing a small portion of crime, women in the United States remain overrepresented in the Criminal Justice System. The United States generates 30 percent of all incarcerated women in the world, despite only comprising five percent of the female population.[13] As such, multiple studies have been conducted to analyze the differences in the crimes committed by men and women, as well as the sentencing of such offenders. Typically, women have been found to hold an advantage over men in sentencing; however, the degree of preferential treatment varies by the type of offense committed.[13][14][15][16] In regard to property and drug offenses specifically, women are less likely than male offenders to receive a prison sentence. When female offenders do receive a prison sentence, research has found women receive shorter sentences than male offenders for the same offense.[14][17] The level of preferential treatment shown to female offenders was lower when the offense was in violation of gender norms. Women who committed more "masculine crimes," such as violent offenses or crimes against children, were not treated preferentially during sentencing.[14] During his concurring opinion in Furman v. Georgia, Justice Thurgood Marshall stated, "There is also overwhelming evidence that the death penalty is employed against men and not women."[17]^:76 Within the scope of capital punishment, women are far less likely to receive a death sentence and even less likely to actually face execution. Between 1973 to 2012, women comprised only 2.1% of death sentences imposed at trial and merely 0.9% of persons executed.[18] Women who are sentenced to death at trial are more likely to receive executive clemency than their male counterparts, despite their crime having more aggravating factors that may increase sentencing outcomes.[19]

In an attempt to explain the preferential treatment that is shown to female offenders in criminal sentencing, researchers have developed theories that concentrate on the differences between the treatment of each gender by society. A possible explanation for disproportionate sentencing is the chivalry thesis which states that gendered stereotypes influence sentencing outcomes as women are considered childlike, less threatening, less dangerous, and not responsible for their behaviors.[14][15] This theory also maintains that men are traditionally inclined to minimize the suffering of women as a result of their paternalistic desire and this behavior has been incorporated into the justice system as it is a male-dominated field.[14][15] Judges primarily explained sentencing differentials as a result of childcare responsibilities that would create a larger social cost if mothers were incarcerated, illustrating direct applications of the chivalry thesis.[15] Others argue the disparity in sentencing is merely the result of human error as a result of the dynamics of judicial decision-making.[14] The focal concerns theory reaffirms this belief as this theory states that the sentencing disparity is the result of a judge's inability to spend a large amount of time on a single case and the incomplete information given to them minimizes their ability to make an fully informed decision.[14][15] As a result, judges may unknowingly rely on generalizations of personal biases to guide sentencing decisions.[14] In an attempt to prevent preferential treatment to particular genders, races, ethnicities, or socio-economic classes, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines were enacted to create sentencing uniformity and equality.[17] The enactment of these guidelines has since increased sentences given to women at trial; however, the disparity between male and female offenders persists as the internal biases influencing preferential sentencing have not been addressed. [17]

• History of mandatory sentencing in the United States
• History of United States Prison Systems
• United States constitutional sentencing law
• Federal Sentencing Guidelines
• Taylor v. United States
• United States Sentencing Commission
• United States v. Booker