The now available Model Penal Code: Sentencing book reexamines the sentencing provisions of the 1962 Model Penal Code in light of the many changes in sentencing philosophy and practice that have taken place since its original publication.
The project was led by Reporter Kevin R. Reitz of the University of Minnesota Law School and Associate Reporter Cecelia M. Klingele of the University of Wisconsin.
The Sentencing project provides guidance on some of the most important issues that courts, corrections systems, and policymakers are facing today, including the general purposes of the sentencing system; rules governing sentence severity—including sentences of incarceration, community supervision, and economic penalties; the elimination of mandatory minimum penalties; mechanisms for combating racial and ethnic disparities in punishment; instruments of prison population control; collateral consequences, including guidelines, notification, and order of relief; victims’ rights in the sentencing process; the sentencing of juvenile offenders in adult courts; the creation of judicial powers to review many collateral consequences of conviction; and many issues having to do with judicial sentencing discretion, sentencing commissions, sentencing guidelines, and appellate sentence review.
In 2009, after Professors Carol S. Steiker of Harvard Law School and Jordan M. Steiker of The University of Texas School of Law produced the “Report to the ALI Concerning Capital Punishment,” the Institute withdrew Section 210.6 of the Model Penal Code “in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”
“As a matter of recent history in this country, we’re at quite an important moment, where the conversation and political attitudes towards criminal justice policy and sentencing policy have been shifting dramatically at the state level,” said Professor Reitz upon the project’s completion. “Despite current uncertainties in the federal government, legislators, policymakers, and lawmakers in state and local criminal justice systems are searching for workable solutions to problems of mass punitiveness that have grown since the 1970s. This moment in history is particularly fortuitous for the Model Penal Code because we are arriving at the point of completion just as this new or changed nationwide debate is occurring. For lawmakers, judges, and corrections leaders, we can provide the tools they will need to create important and lasting sentencing reforms in their jurisdictions.”