U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected Findings Number 4 Prison Sentences and Time Served for Violence April 1995, NCJ-153858 By Lawrence A. Greenfeld BJS Statistician Since the mid-1970's, legislatures around the Nation have sought to reduce discretion in both the sentencing process and the determination of when the conditions of a sentence have been satisfied. Determinate sentencing, use of mandatory minimums, and guidelines-based sentencing are illustrations of approaches that limit discretion and increase the predictability of penalties. A majority of State prisoners today serve presumptive sentences--90% of State inmates can estimate their probable release date, and their discharge from prison is less likely than in the past to be determined by a parole board decision. In 1977, 72% of those released from State prisons had served an indeterminate sentence, and a parole board decided their release. In 1992, by contrast, less than 40% of prison releases were determined by a parole board. Interest in truth-in-sentencing reflects continued attention to discretion and to the relation between sentences and time served. Truth-in-sentencing is generally meant to describe a close correspondence between the sentence imposed upon those sent to prison and the time actually served prior to prison release. Data collected from States by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) indicate that violent offenders released from State prisons in 1992 served 48% of the sentence they had received--an average of 43 months in confinement, both jail and prison, on an average sentence of 89 months. The finding that just under half the sentence will be served in confinement was confirmed through analysis of self-reports of a national sample of State prisoners. An examination of prison release practices for violent offenders in 31 States reveals wide disparity across the States in sentence length but substantially less disparity and greater consensus on the duration of time spent in confinement. (Violent offenders are persons convicted of homicide, kidnaping, forcible rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, or other crimes involving the threat or imposition of harm upon the victim, including extortion, intimidation, reckless endangerment, hit-and-run driving with injury, or child abuse.) These findings are drawn from BJS data collection programs, including the annual National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) and the 1991 sample survey of State prisoners. (See Sources of data, page 3.) Admissions, releases, and prisoners present Prison releases Participating NCRP States, representing about 8 out of 10 violent offenders released from prisons nationwide in 1992, provided sufficient information to examine the relationship between the sentence received and time served prior to first release. Released violent offenders in 1992 served 48% of their sentence Average Percent of Average time sentence Type of offense sentence served* served --------------------------------------------------- All violent 89 months 43 months 48% Homicide 149 71 48 Rape 117 65 56 Kidnaping 104 52 50 Robbery 95 44 46 Sexual assault 72 35 49 Assault 61 29 48 Other 60 28 47 --------------------------------------------------- *Includes jail credit and prison time. Little variability was found in the percentage of sentence served for different types of violent crimes. For most violent crimes, offenders served just under half of the sentence imposed. Those convicted of rape were found to serve the highest percentage of their sentences, 56%. Prison releases ------------------------------------ Percent of Average Average sentence Years sentence time served served --------------------------------------------- 1988 95 months 41 months 43% 1989 91 42 46 1990 94 44 47 1991 92 44 48 1992 89 43 48 During the most recent 5-year period, data for released violent offenders indicated that the percentage of their sentence spent in prison remained relatively stable. Prison admissions Another measure of the time served relative to a sentence is derived from those admitted to prison. NCRP obtains estimates of the minimum time to be served by those admitted to State prisons. From 1988 to 1992, sentences received and preliminary estimates of length of stay for violent offenders admitted to State prisons have shown a consistent percentage of the sentence to be served: Prison admissions -------------------------------------- Percent of Average Average time sentence Years sentence to be served to be served ----------------------------------------------- 1988 113 months 66 months 58% 1989 107 65 61 1990 105 63 60 1991 105 64 61 1992 104 62 60 Admissions in 1992 had average sentences of 104 months, and correctional authorities predicted that they would stay for 60% of that time. Releases that same year had average sentences that were 15 months shorter and their length of stay was 19 months less; releases served 48% of the sentences they received. Estimated percentage of sentence served or to be served by admitted, current, and released prisoners Prisoner self-reports and records obtained for those released from prison tell a similar story--just under half the sentence received will be served in confinement. Estimates for admissions, however, may differ from the other estimates for two reasons: admissions reflect current policies and legislation affecting the use of prison, and less is known at admission about how long inmates will actually serve. During the course of a prison stay, various credits against a sentence may be earned (such as good time) or reductions in sentence length may occur (such as sentence rollbacks in crowding emergencies), changing the percentage of sentence actually served. Average Average Percent of Prisoner status sentence time served sentence ------------------------------------------------------_ Admissions, 1992 104 months 62 months 60% Prisoners, 1991 216 100 46 Releases, 1992 89 43 48 Estimating hypothetical impacts of changing the percentage of sentence served Thinking about truth-in-sentencing requires at least the knowledge of two numbers--sentence length and the actual or predicted length of stay. Since the desired goal of truth-in-sentencing is to increase the percentage of sentence served over current practice, it is possible to estimate what sentences and what time served would be necessary to achieve increased correspondence between the two. Such estimates would, of course, be speculative because policies or practices implemented by jurisdictions seeking to change the percentage of sentence served may simultaneously modify both sentence length and time served. If the current average sentence remained the same for violent offenders and a policy were adopted requiring that 85% of the current sentence should be served, the predicted time served would increase the current length of stay-- * for admissions, 26 months * for prisoners present, 84 months * for releases, an average 33 months longer in prison. Based upon current sentences, what would time served in prison be if violent offenders served higher percentages of the sentences they had received? Estimated time to serve Percent of ----------------------------------- sentence Prison Prisoners Prison served admissions present releases ------------------------------------------------ Current 62 months 100 months 43 months 65% 68 140 58 70% 73 151 62 75% 78 162 67 80% 83 173 71 85% 88 184 76 90% 94 194 80 95% 99 205 85 100% 104 216 89 Based upon current time served in prison, what would sentences need to be to achieve higher percentages of sentence served? Estimated sentence Percent of ---------------------------------- sentence Prison Prisoners Prison served admissions present releases ----------------------------------------------- Current 104 months 216 months 89 months 65% 95 154 66 70% 89 143 61 75% 83 133 57 80% 78 125 54 85% 73 118 51 90% 69 111 48 95% 65 105 45 100% 62 100 43 An alternate approach would be to hold constant the current average lengths of stay and change sentence lengths, attempting to ensure a particular ratio of time served to sentence. As shown above, by setting the sentence as 85% of the current time served, estimated sentence lengths would decrease-- * for admissions, 31 months * for prisoners present, 98 months * for releases, an average 38 months. How States differ in the percentage of sentence served Among the NCRP States, released violent offenders in 1992 had an average sentence of 89 months and an average time served of 43 months; these violent prisoners had served 48% of their sentence prior to discharge from prison. The reporting jurisdictions can be divided into three groups according to whether they were above, at, or below the national average percentage of sentence served. Above average: About 40% of releasees were in States that had percentages of sentence served that were at least 10% (5 percentage points) above the national average of 48%. For these States, the average sentence was 72 months and average time served was 44 months, or 61% of the imposed sentence. Average: Just under 30% of releasees were in States that had approximately the national ratio of time served to sentence with average sentences of 102 months and time served of 47 months, or 46% of the sentence. Below average: The remaining 30% of releasees were in States that provided release records in which the percent of sentence served fell at least 10% (5 percentage points) below the national average with sentences averaging 125 months and time served of 42 months. Discharged violent offenders in these States had served 34% of the sentence they had received. Prison releases States with ------------------------------------ a percent Average Percent of of sentence Average time sentence served-- sentence served served --------------------------------------------------- Above average 72 months 44 months 61% Average 102 47 46 Below average 125 42 34 These data indicate that all three groupings of States had similar time served among violent offenders released from prison regardless of the sentence received or the percentage of sentence served. In other words, States have a much greater consensus on the duration of incarceration for violent crime than could be inferred from simply examining the sentences imposed or the percentage of sentence served. Sources of data In 1992, 38 States and the District of Columbia participated in the National Corrections Reporting Program, covering 93% of State prison admissions nationwide (431,000 records) and 86% of State prison releases (348,000 records). While the length of the sentence received was gathered for both groups of prisoners, time served (including jail credits) was only obtainable for those released from prison. For those admitted to prisons in 1992, States provided a prediction of the expected minimum time to be served. In 1991 BJS conducted a representative sample survey of State prisoners and obtained estimates from prisoners of the likely time to be served. Approximately 14,000 inmate interviews were conducted in 45 States. The categorization of violent offenses is the same for both the NCRP and the survey of State prisoners. Beginning in 1982, a three-digit offense coding system was devised by BJS, in consultation with State departments of corrections, to provide a uniform approach. A user's guide provided to the States indicated how BJS categorized particular offenses. NCRP datasets, available for public use through the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, preserve the original source offense codes as well as the assigned BJS offense codes. BJS has expanded its codes over the years to take into account groups of offenses entering common use and to provide increased detail on other offenses. These revisions have been provided to the participating States. Most analyses in this report used data on sentence length, jail credits, and time served in prison from published BJS reports. The analysis comparing States on the percent of sentence served used individual-level records supplied by the States. Differences in the methods used may introduce small differences in the estimates. (end of file) Creation System Name : NCJRS BBS This system is : NCJRS BBS This user is : bjs topic no 196 Topic Name : Corrections current date Tue Nov 21 06:58:24 1995 Entry # : 1126 prepared Apr 25 09:31:07 1995 Author : Admin Subject :Prison Sentences and Time Served for Violence (ASCII) Read by : Admin : at Tue Apr 25 09:54:52 1995 rhogan : at Fri Apr 28 19:19:32 1995 sstone : at Mon May 1 00:16:36 1995 ngood : at Tue May 30 20:48:42 1995 smith : at Wed Jun 14 15:46:24 1995 sarnold : at Tue Jun 20 21:10:20 1995 jwhitehall : at Sun Jul 9 07:44:34 1995 joesager : at Thu Jul 13 01:31:28 1995 dgoldin : at Fri Jul 21 20:17:04 1995 vworkman : at Tue Jul 25 14:40:44 1995 abk : at Thu Jul 27 16:09:34 1995 dickbash : at Wed Aug 2 07:57:53 1995 mjackson : at Sun Aug 20 19:18:57 1995 johnorris : at Wed Aug 30 18:57:53 1995 abolin : at Thu Sep 7 18:00:28 1995 gkgk : at Thu Sep 28 11:07:24 1995 cindy : at Thu Oct 5 18:57:02 1995 bhoyer : at Sun Oct 8 12:14:19 1995 broberts : at Mon Nov 6 22:33:33 1995 jcecil : at Fri Nov 10 23:47:28 1995 tregn : at Tue Nov 14 10:42:25 1995 Owning Topic : T=Corrections - 196 E= 1126 Type = e