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16-90-801. Statement of sentencing policy.
Arkansas Code — all titles (historical 2020) · legal_authorities
16-90-801. Statement of sentencing policy.
(a) Purposes of Sentencing. The primary purposes of sentencing a person convicted of a crime are:
(1) To punish an offender commensurate with the nature and extent of the harm caused by the offense, taking into account factors that may diminish or increase an offender's culpability;
(2) To protect the public by restraining offenders;
(3) To provide restitution or restoration to victims of crime to the extent possible and appropriate;
(4) To assist the offender toward rehabilitation and restoration to the community as a lawful citizen; and
(5) To deter criminal behavior and foster respect for the law.
(b)Purpose of Sentencing Standards.
(1) Though voluntary, the purpose of establishing rational and consistent sentencing standards is to seek to ensure that sanctions imposed following conviction are proportional to the seriousness of the offense of conviction and the extent of the offender's criminal history.
(2) The standards seek to ensure equitable sanctions which provide that offenders similar with respect to relevant sentencing criteria will receive similar sanctions and offenders substantially different with respect to relevant sentencing criteria will receive different sanctions.
(3) Sentencing criteria should be neutral with respect to race, gender, social, and economic status.
(c)Appropriate Use of Sentencing Sanctions.
(1) Rational and consistent sentencing policy requires a continuum of sanctions which increases in direct proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the extent of the offender's criminal history.
(2) Commitment to the Division of Correction is the most severe sanction and due to the finite capacity of the division's facilities, it should be reserved for those convicted of the
Source: Arkansas Code — historical release 78 (November 6, 2020) · 16-90-801
Stored review status: Historical 2020-11-06 source release; later amendments not reconciled; machine-extracted, not independently legally reviewed; source heading status: text_in_historical_source. A text match is a research starting point; applicability is not established.
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Stable record: arkansas_code:legal_authorities:16-90-801
Source file: gov.ar.code.title.16.odt
Pages: Not recorded – Not recorded
Passage SHA-256: 050346cd11b0283fecf26e578105c249cdf636c3547fa8a8e82878d79c2c5183
Source location: content.xml paragraph 35102
Stored source content
16-90-801. Statement of sentencing policy.
(a) Purposes of Sentencing. The primary purposes of sentencing a person convicted of a crime are:
(1) To punish an offender commensurate with the nature and extent of the harm caused by the offense, taking into account factors that may diminish or increase an offender's culpability;
(2) To protect the public by restraining offenders;
(3) To provide restitution or restoration to victims of crime to the extent possible and appropriate;
(4) To assist the offender toward rehabilitation and restoration to the community as a lawful citizen; and
(5) To deter criminal behavior and foster respect for the law.
(b)Purpose of Sentencing Standards.
(1) Though voluntary, the purpose of establishing rational and consistent sentencing standards is to seek to ensure that sanctions imposed following conviction are proportional to the seriousness of the offense of conviction and the extent of the offender's criminal history.
(2) The standards seek to ensure equitable sanctions which provide that offenders similar with respect to relevant sentencing criteria will receive similar sanctions and offenders substantially different with respect to relevant sentencing criteria will receive different sanctions.
(3) Sentencing criteria should be neutral with respect to race, gender, social, and economic status.
(c)Appropriate Use of Sentencing Sanctions.
(1) Rational and consistent sentencing policy requires a continuum of sanctions which increases in direct proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the extent of the offender's criminal history.
(2) Commitment to the Division of Correction is the most severe sanction and due to the finite capacity of the division's facilities, it should be reserved for those convicted of the most serious offenses, those who have longer criminal histories, and those who have repeatedly failed to comply with conditions imposed under less restrictive sanctions.
(3) Arkansas law provides for significant intermediate penal sanctions in the community which should be utilized when appropriate.
(4) Restrictions on an offender's liberty should only be as restrictive as necessary to fulfill the purposes of sentencing contained in this policy.
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