PRESENTENCING INVESTIGATIONS AND REPORTS
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 predisposed or likely to commit crimes.
Prior to the mid 19th century, sentencing practices in England and the United States reflected primarily the first three objectives. According to Marshall (1987), "the common law allowed a judge little sentencing discretion because punishment for all felonies, except petty larceny or mayhem, was the death sentence" (p. 211; Hibbert, 1963, p. 55). Before 1840, Massachusetts had 14 capital offenses, including adultery and sodomy (Samaha, 1989, p. 217).
The ...