To develop and maintain a monitoring system that allows for comprehensive evaluation of the sentencing guidelines. The Commission receives presentence investigation (PSI) reports, probation revocations and journal entries for all persons who are sentenced for felony crimes committed on or after July 1, 1993. See K.S.A. 74-9101(b)(5). Sentencing information extracted from the PSIs and journal entries is maintained in two databases -- one for prison dispositions and one for non-prison dispositions -- from which the Commission staff can then monitor, evaluate, and analyze sentences imposed pursuant to the sentencing guidelines. The Commission staff also provides sentencing information to individual counties, judicial districts, and the federal government, upon request. In response to complaints and concerns from users of the sentencing guidelines journal entry forms, the Sentencing Commission revised the forms in FY 1996 to a more simplified format which is more user-friendly, and which will facilitate more valid and reliable information pertaining to guidelines sentences imposed.
Objectives of Goal:
To forecast the state's adult and juvenile offender populations incarcerated in state institutions, and to determine the impact of proposed legislation on the prison population. In FY 1996, the legislation allocated resources to the Sentencing Commission for the acquisition of the PROPHET Simulation Model, an interactive microcomputer software system designed by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD). The PROPHET model permits staff analysts to construct a model which mimics the flow of offenders through the prison and parole populations based on the state of Kansas' sentencing structure and policy environment. With the PROPHET model, population and movement through the prison system can be forecasted annually, for as far as ten years into the future. The model also allows staff analysts to determine the impact of proposed legislation on the prison population, thus facilitating the Commission's duty to prepare and submit fiscal impact and correctional resource statements as required. See K.S.A. 74-9101(b)(8).
As of FY 1996, the Sentencing Commission is the provider of the official offender population projections for the State of Kansas. The first official ten year baseline projections of the adult prison population, using the PROPHET model, were released in November, 1995. In November, 1995, the Sentencing Commission extended its contract with NCCD, through a grant from the department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), to allow for the development of a juvenile detention module for PROPHET. The juvenile detention module will enable staff researchers to analyze juvenile offenders housed in urban and regional detention facilities throughout the state and to project and monitor detention center populations in a similar manner as the state prison population. In March, 1996, the Sentencing Commission was awarded a contract to conduct the state youth center population projections as part of the needs assessment study commissioned by the Youth Authority. These population projections will be the basis for the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act (HB 2900), which became effective July 1, 1997.
Objectives of Goal
To assist in the process of educating and training judges, attorneys, court services officers, state parole officers, correctional officers, law enforcement officials and other criminal justice groups in the understanding and application of sentencing guidelines. Since 1993, the Sentencing Commission staff has initiated and conducted training seminars on sentencing guidelines across the stat in accordance with its duties under K.S.A. 74-9101(b)(4), and the Commission -- members as well as staff -- frequently participate in seminars and training conferences at the request of various criminal justice groups and associations, or sponsored by universities, including CLE training. In addition, the Commission publishes the Sentencing Guidelines Desk Reference Manual. An updated edition of the Manual is issued each year by the Commission following the Kansas legislative session, as a resource for judges, attorneys, court services officers, clerks of court, corrections and parole officers, law enforcement, and other criminal justice groups or interested individuals throughout the state.
Objectives of Goal
700 SW Jackson, Suite 501
Topeka, Kansas 66603
785-296-0923
Fax: 785-296-0927