Predispositional Reports and Juveniles

This research paper traces the history in the United States of the presentencing investigation (PSI) and presentencing report (PSIR), sometimes called predispositional reports in the case of juveniles. Today PSIs and PSIRs play an integral part in the sentencing of criminal defendants, especially those convicted of felonies and juvenile offenses, in federal and state courts and are used for other post-conviction purposes. The principal factor determining the nature, content and rights of criminal litigants with respect to PSIs and PSIRS has been the historical evolution of and changes in sentencing philosophy and practice.

According to Klein (1997), "presentence investigations go back to the beginning of probation in the 1840s," to the first organized quasi-official system in Boston (p. 27). Any system of criminal justice serves a number of purposes, the relative importance of which influence sentencing decisions in criminal cases: (1) retribution, the wreaking of society's desire for revenge on the offender; (2) deterrence, making an example of the offender to deter him or her and others from committing the same offense; (3) incapacitation, removing the offender from society so that for some period of time he is no longer a danger to it; (4) fitting the punishment to the crime, the just desserts theory; and (5) rehabilitation, changing the offender himself so that he or she is no longer predispos

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ports] have come to include a great deal of material of doubtful relevance to dispositions in most cases. The orientation of many probation officers is often reflected in, . . . attempts to provide in all presentence reports comprehensive analysis of offenders, including extensive descriptions of their childhood experiences (Klein, 1997, p. 28). The result was a plethora of new statutes at state and federal levels designed to reduce disparity in sentencing and to increase truth in sentencing. In many states, parole was abolished or sharply restricted. In a dozen or more states by the late 1980s, indeterminate sentence laws were replaced by determinate sentence statutes and in others stricter sentencing guidelines were imposed. In 1997, Klein summarized those state laws: Almost all states have some statutes imposing mandatory sentences for certain crimes. A dozen others have presumptive sentencing systems that prescribe a range of punishments for normal cases but allow the judge to depart for extraordinary reasons. Punishment is based in statutorily prescribed aggravating and mitigating factors. Usually appellate courts have characterized aggravating factors as willful conduct by the defendant and mitigation as conduct beyo
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Approximate Word count = 3145
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)