Over forty years ago, sentencing in the U.S. was primarily "indeterminate," with judges pronouncing long sentence terms consisting of minimum and maximum times to serve, and parole boards exercising their discretion in reviewing individual cases for release from prison. Since 1980, multiple states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia have enacted sentencing guidelines. master:2022-04-19_10-08-26. The federal sentencing guidelines are rules that federal judges are required to consider when sentencing someone who has been convicted of a federal crime. Intended to give federal judges fair and consistent sentencing ranges to consult when they are handing down a sentence, the guidelines are based on both the This paper provides a brief history of Federal sentencing in the United States, a description of the impetus for reform that culminated in the current Sentencing Guidelines, and a critique of the present approach to Federal sentencing, delineating the major vices and flaws of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and its guidelines. The USSC's Guidelines Manual is over 600 pages long, and the information in the Guidelines Manual is complex, dense, and hard to follow. This Ultimate Guide to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is intended to provide an introduction to the key information that federal criminal defendants and their lawyers need to know. As a result of mounting pressure, Congress enacted the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA). The SRA established a new federal sentencing guideline system. The SRA established sentencing practices by creating the federal sentencing guidelines. In the same Act, Congress also created the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC). The analysis notes that the transfer of formal sentencing authority from Federal judges to the Sentencing Commission is probably the most significant development in assessing the Federal judicial system since the 1938 adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The new regime transformed both the judge's role and the Federal criminal The Origin of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The Judicial branch of our federal government houses an independent agency called the United States Sentencing Commission. The Commission has seven voting and two non-voting members. The Commission's purpose is to establish sentencing policies for the federal criminal justice system. In 1984 as These sentencing guidelines were created by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which created the United State Sentencing Commission. The objective of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines was to alleviate disparities that research showed had developed in the sentencing system that was currently in effect. The United States Sentencing Commission is an independent agency of the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for articulating the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the federal courts. The Commission promulgates the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which replaced the prior system of indeterminate sentencing that allowed trial judges to give sentences ranging from the United States Sentencing Commission, an in-dependent expert body located in the judicial branch. This delegation of authority to the Com- An Introduction to Federal Sentencing . 3 . Guidelines and Statutory Minimums.While . Booker. expanded the courts' discretion to sen-tence outside the guidelines, it