Pennsylvania’s 8th Edition Sentencing Guidelines: Preliminary Results of a Process Evaluation

• In Event: Policy Evaluation Surrounding Courts and Sentencing

Abstract

Pennsylvania recently redesigned its sentencing guidelines with the goals of increasing fairness and consistency and reducing racial and ethnic disparities. This presentation includes a summary of the planned components of a five-year National Institute of Justice-funded evaluation of Pennsylvania’s “new” (i.e., 8th edition) sentencing guidelines and the preliminary results of the process evaluation. Using a systematic review of publicly available documentation and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing stakeholders, we describe the change processes preceding the implementation of the 8th edition guidelines and situate these within an implementation science framework. Results include, for example, summaries of the groups of stakeholders involved, the data and activities used to inform major revisions, dissenting opinions between stakeholder groups, and the alignment of the adopted revisions with evidence-informed guidance on reducing disparities. We conclude by highlighting the revisions that are intended to address racial and ethnic disparities, specifically, and share our planned strategies for evaluating their impacts and delivering generalizable knowledge about sentencing policy evaluation.

Authors

• Clare Strange, Drexel University

• Jordan Zvonkovich, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing