U.S. Sentencing Commission Guideline amendments

The United States Sentencing Commission announced yesterday its sending to Congress amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines.

The Commission's press release summarizes the amendments as "expanding the availability of alternatives to incarceration and address the relevance of certain specific offender characteristics in sentencing. The Commission also voted to promulgate guideline amendments on additional topics including hate crimes, the calculation of a defendant’s criminal history, and sentencing corporate offenders.”