SENTENCING MATTERS by Michael Tonry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 222 pp. Cloth $29.95
Reviewed by Bradley Stewart Chilton, Department of Political Science
and Public Administration, The University of Toledo.
Among the wide variety of debaters on criminal sentencing, this book is a successful attempt to mesh the facts and the reforms into a beautifully rational polemic. Since the 1970s, criminal punishment in America has increased dramatically and has spawned a major growth industry of interested corrections officials, administrators, politicians, and scholars. Many competing reformers of criminal sentencing seem to stretch the facts to far to fit their particular policy direction. In SENTENCING MATTERS, the reader develops a sense that Michael Tonry is ever-prudent in reporting facts or figures in his assessment of decades of state and federal experimentation with sentencing institutions and systems. Tonry is equally prudent and clear in laying out his proposed sentencing reforms.
SENTENCING MATTERS is a brief eight-chapter book, with Tonry's suggested eight-part "just sentencing system" reforms recited at the beginning and ending. Chapters two through seven provide his ever-careful survey of the decades of state and federal experimentation with sentencing institutions and systems. Tonry does not survey sentencing behavior of states (about half) still under traditional "indeterminate" sentencing. Nor does he repeat his recent analysis of racial issues in sentencing (i.e., Tonry, MALIGN NEGLECT: RACE, CRIME, AND PUNISHMENT, 1995).
Tonry begins by announcing his suggested eight-part "just sentencing system": (1) repeal all mandatory minimum sentences; (2) invest into intermediate sanctions approaches; and (3) create a "sentencing commission"; that will (4) develop and monitor sentencing guidelines; and (5) ensure that all sentences can be funded by existing resources; and (6) set maximum sentences for all cases and minimum terms for only the most serious crimes; and (7) devise some flexibility in the guidelines for penalties other than jail or prison; and (8) explicitly presume that judges will "...impose the least punitive and intrusive appropriate sentence" (page 5). He completes chapter 1 with an overview of the past twenty-five years of state and federal experimentation with sentencing institutions and systems. Tonry comes to focus on the trend toward indeterminate sentencing and argues that while this "just deserts" approach treats like cases alike, it fails to treat different cases differently.
The remainder of the book consists of Tonry's assessment of the research that supports his eight-part "just sentencing system" reforms. In Chapter 2 Tonry overviews successes and failures in the development of state sentencing commissions. He implies that the success of state sentencing commissions support his recommendations. In Chapter 3, by contrast, Tonry includes few (if any) positive words on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, yet offers constructive criticism and a 7-point reform to salvage the existing system. He recites these failures to bolster his suggested reforms to repeal minimum penalties, set maximum sentences for all crimes, and devise flexibility in alternatives to jail or prison. Chapter 4 builds on Tonry's previous writings on intermediate sanctions (e.g., Tonry & Morris, BETWEEN PRISON AND PROBATION: INTERMEDIATE PUNISHMENTS IN A RATIONAL PUNISHMENT SYSTEM, 1990) and allows him to bolster recommendations for greater uses of intermediate sanctions. In Chapter 5 he recites failures in the push for tougher mandatory penalties (e.g., the "three strikes and you're out" laws) and pushes for greater flexibility in sentencing guidelines. Tonry devotes a slight chapter (6) to bemoan the limited judicial involvement in sentencing reforms and advocate greater efforts to involve judges in every step of sentencing reform. Tonry also compares U.S.A. sentencing reforms with that of other Western-style democracies in chapter 7. Finally, in chapter 8, Tonry returns to his suggested eight-part "just sentencing system" reforms recited at the book's beginning and gives a capsule summary arguments for each.
SENTENCING MATTERS is written primarily for an audience of administrators and policy-makers - not to the more theoretical audience of scholars. Tonry's book presents no systematic theory or philosophy, but concretely assesses the impact of decades of state and federal experimentation with sentencing institutions and systems. In the tradition of policy advocacy, I found his book to be a great example and model for others. I particularly enjoyed his crisp, logically concise, yet active writing style and organization. With such an extensive overview of the field of sentencing, it should find classroom adoption as a secondary or recommended book in upper-division undergraduate or law school classes on criminal sentencing. And since Tonry is widely known for his decades of study, consulting, publication, and close contacts in the sentencing field, all interested administrators and policymakers should read his book closely.