The Commission should publish a Crime Impact Statement with each proposed revision of the Guidelines sent to Congress. When courts have employed their discretion to depart, the results have not been even-handed. Downward departures outnumber upward departures by the astonishing ratio of 57 to 1. Even excluding substantial assistance departures, downward departures outnumber upward departures 26 to 1. There is a lesson in these numbers.
More discretion means lower sentences.
We know in advance that some of those criminals, on being released, are going to commit more crime. In the aggregate, a reasonable ballpark estimate of how much more should be possible. The public is owed this information. If longer sentences will mean more costs in bedspace and security, shorter sentences will mean more costs in recidivism. The public is entitled to know both sides of the story.