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Criminal Law: The Missing Element In Sentencing Reform, Michael H. Tonry

Vanderbilt Law Review

The thesis of this Article is that the substantive criminal law is the missing element in sentencing reform. If comprehensive sentencing reform strategies are to have lasting effect, legislatures must reintroduce the criminal law to the sentencing process. This step will require a rekindled interest in a moral analysis of the substantive criminal law and the enactment of greatly reduced statutory sentence maximums, along with more conventional institutional changes to structure discretion and increase official accountability.

Objections to American sentencing procedures range from the principled to the practical. Part II of this Article summarizes the basic objections that have influenced …

Foreword, G. Michael Mccrossin, Editor

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the primary goals of the American criminal justice system is to protect the civil liberties of accused persons while at the same time ensuring the security of citizens' persons and property. Recently, some people have begun to argue that the pursuit of these dual purposes has resulted in a dangerous imbalance, and that our criminal justice system now focuses far too heavily on the rights of the accused. These people have perceived an alarming upswing in the incidence of violent crime and have attributed that upswing to a breakdown in the legal profession's administration of the criminal law.