The Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission trumpets those criminal sentencing guidelines as a way to reserve prison space for the most violent offenders and to use community alternatives when they would best keep an offender from committing new crimes.

But prosecutors have long criticized the guidelines as cookie-cutter justice, and on Thursday, they scored a victory when the Missouri House voted to abolish the commission.

Details.

[The Texas Punishment Standards Commission initially considered sentencing guidelines but ultimately rejected them as inconsistent with the Texas method of providing broad discretion to judges and juries in deciding punishment.]

This quote from the article perhaps explains what some liberal Texas politicians are currently trying to do:

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia, said the agency's methodology was flawed and had the effect of promoting an agenda to reduce the prison population.

"The end of this commission will, in fact, remove the inaccurate information that is communicated to our sentencing judges in the state of Missouri, whereby liberal judges are given cover to release from prison or reduce the sentence and give lighter sentences to the worst offenders, second offenders and violent offenders," Cox said.

In Oregon, a man who sexually abused his granddaughter was sentenced, per the guidleines, to 72 months in prison, as a first offender. There was no penetration. The problem? He started abusing the little girl when she was four and a half, and continuously abused her until she was six. The guidelines at the time applied whether someone pled or went to trial. Naturally, this creep demanded his trial, and a 6 year old, clutching her teddy bear, got to relive the abuse in a room full of strangers.

I have never believed in guidelines. If a jury is too harsh or too lenient, well, that happens and you drive on. If judges are too harsh or too liberal, there is a remedy - they get voted out next time.