How the guidelines work

The United States Sentencing Guidelines are a manual, revised by the Sentencing Commission, that turns the facts of a federal offence and the record of the person sentenced into a recommended range of months. Since United States v. Booker (2005) the range is advisory: the court must calculate it and consider it, but may sentence outside it after weighing the factors in 18 U.S.C. §3553(a).

Offence level

Each offence of conviction maps to a Chapter Two guideline (for example §2D1.1 for drug trafficking or §2B1.1 for fraud). The guideline sets a base offence level and adds or subtracts levels for specific offence characteristics: drug quantity, loss amount, use of a weapon, number of victims. Chapter Three adjustments then apply for role in the offence, obstruction and acceptance of responsibility. The result, after grouping multiple counts, is the final offence level, from 1 to 43. This site reports the median final offence level for each group (national median: 17).

Criminal history category

Chapter Four assigns points for prior sentences and produces a criminal history category from I (0 or 1 point) to VI (13 or more). Some statuses, such as career offender under §4B1.1, set the category directly. The site shows the share of cases at each category; nationally 45% of cases are in Category I.

The range

The sentencing table in Chapter Five crosses offence level with criminal history category to give a range in months, for example 57 to 71 months at level 25, Category I. Statutory minimums and maximums override the table: a ten-year mandatory minimum lifts the bottom of the range to 120 months. The Commission records the range the court used as the guideline minimum and maximum.

Within, above and below the range

The Commission classifies every sentence by its relation to the range and the reason given. This site uses the Commission's SENTRNGE categories, grouped the way the Sourcebook groups them:

• Within range: the sentence falls inside the calculated range. Nationally 47% of sentences over the period.
• Above range: an upward departure under a provision of the Manual, or an above-range variance under §3553(a). Nationally 3%.
• Below range, government sponsored: a motion by the prosecution for substantial assistance (§5K1.1), an early-disposition programme (§5K3.1, common in border districts), or another government-sponsored departure or variance. Nationally 29%.
• Below range, other: a downward departure or a below-range variance without a government motion. Nationally 21%.

A departure cites a policy statement in the Manual; a variance rests on the statutory factors. Guideline pages on this site show the nine underlying categories separately.

What the figures cannot tell you

The share of sentences below the range in a district reflects its offence mix (early-disposition programmes, for example, are concentrated in immigration cases), the prevalence of cooperation motions and the courts' practice together; the datafile does not separate them. None of the figures describes a particular case, and the site does not offer advice about one.