Description:
On April 27, 2023, the United States Sentencing Commission submitted to Congress an
amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines revising two criminal history provisions found in Chapter Four of the Guidelines Manual. Specifically, Part A of the amendment makes targeted changes to reduce the impact of providing additional criminal history points for offenders under a criminal justice sentence (commonly known as “status points”), and Part B, Subpart 1 provides a two-level downward adjustment for certain offenders with zero criminal history points under the guidelines (“zero-point offenders”). Because these two provisions reduce the sentencing range for some offenders, the Commission is statutorily required to determine whether either or both of these parts of the amendment should be applied retroactively to previously sentenced, imprisoned defendants. As required by its Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Commission voted at the April 5, 2023 public meeting to instruct staff to prepare a retroactivity impact analysis to aid the Commission in determining whether to do so. This memorandum provides that analysis.
Objective Research for More Equitable Outcomes