I want to echo a recent post by Doug Berman over at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog on the timely release of US Sentencing Commission data. The Commission recently released its 2005 Annual Report and 2005 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. The official description of these new materials follows:
"The 2005 Annual Report presents an overview of major Commission activities and accomplishments for fiscal year 2005. See the Commission's 2005 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics for descriptive figures, tables, and charts, and selected district, circuit and national sentencing data."
For sentencing and crim law folks in general and empirical wonks in particular, these resources (particularly the Sourcebook) add to a critical (and growing) data base. As Doug notes, scholars pushing theories about or assessing the efficacy of the Booker decision (e.g.) might want to look at what is actually happening with federal sentencing.
Comments