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New USSC amendments expanding prison alternatives and addressing certain offender characteristics

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this just posted official press release, the United States Sentencing Commission has "voted to promulgate sentencing guideline amendments that expand the availability of alternatives to incarceration and address the relevance of certain specific offender characteristics in sentencing."  Here's more of the details from the press release: The Commission also voted to promulgate guideline amendments on additional topics including hate crimes, the calculation of a defendant?s criminal history, and sentencing corporate offenders. The amendment on sentencing alternatives has several key components.  First it informs courts that departures from the guidelines may be warranted in situations where an offender?s criminal activity is related to a treatment issue such as drug or alcohol abuse or significant mental illness and sentencing options such as home or community confinement or intermittent confinement would serve a specific treatment purpose...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 19, 2010 (boomark / email).