6. Conclusion

Since the above recommendations are in substantial accord with the views of the subcommittee of the Department of Justice and the Advisory Corrections Council, it is believed that if the recommendations of your subcommittee are adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, there is reasonable likelihood of favorable consideration by Congress.

Respectfully submitted.

BOLITHA J. LAWS, Chairman.

F. RYAN DUFFY.
FRANK A. PICARD.
CARL A. HATCH.

Mr. WILLIS. Our next witness today will be Mr. Bennett, Director of the Bureau of Prisons.

TESTIMONY OF JAMES V. BENNETT, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF

PRISONS, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: May I first of all express my appreciation for your patience and indulgence in granting so liberally of your time to hear what to me is an extremely important bill, because it goes to the very vitals of the kind of work that I am doing. You have already had testimony before you of the details of the bill, and I do not think I need to go into that.

However, I would, with your permission, like to present some more specifications about this disparity of sentencing, if you please, a little something about the experience of the States in this regard, and then, in a very few moments, point up, if I may, how this is a matter of such vital and paramount importance to the work we are trying to do in preventing crime through rehabilitating the men so that they will not again turn to crime.

Let me first of all answer the question as to whether or not there is anything untried or novel about this, and give to your able counsel a series of charts.

The first of those charts I would like to call to your attention is the extent to which this system is being used by the States (chart No. 1). Two-thirds of all State felony prisoners are committed under some form of indeterminate sentence where there is broad discretion in some board as to the time when a particular offender may be released. So there is nothing untried about this.

It is the system prevailing generally throughout the country. We have not had it in Federal courts for a number of reasons. First of all, it has only been in recent years that the Federal courts have had such broad Federal criminal jurisdiction; and, secondly, as Judge Laws pointed out, there have been differences of opinion as to how this problem should be worked out which has delayed the adoption of such a system in the Federal courts.

The second question that you asked is whether this is in any sense a softening of treatment. In answer to that, I show you on this second chart the differences in the amount of time actually served by a prisoner under the indeterminate sentence system and under the definite sentence system (chart No. 2).

You will find that in practically all cases prisoners who are committed under the indeterminate system spend a longer time in prison than in cases of definite sentences.

Mr. Libonati, in your State the indeterminate sentence system, and across the board, all of them actually serve an average of 38 months in prison. That is what that "I" means-I-38.

Your State, Mr. Chairman, is a definite sentencing State, and the amount of time served in your State averages 21 months.

Mr. WILLIS. I see.

Mr. BENNETT. So, judging from the experience of the States, when you put this authority for determining exactly the amount of time a man should serve in the hands of some kind of a parole board, adult authority or other tribunal, he serves a longer time, and that of course is because the officials who deal with these people are able to judge better as to the needs of the man and as to the extent and how the public can best be protected.

Obviously, we will all agree that there is a very considerable amount of disparity in Federal sentencing. That is necessarily so for the reasons you have heard, because of the widespread, tremendous differences in Federal courts and the number of judges, and all of these other reasons you have heard.

CHART NO. 2

MEDIAN MONTHS SERVED BY STATE FELONY PRISONERS IN INDETERMINATE AND DEFINITE SENTENCE STATES: 1953

But I want to present to you just how wide this disparity is. One of the ways to show that is to show the extent to which the different judges use probation. You will see that in this chart [indicating] that the extent to which probation is used varied from 69 percent in Vermont to 15 percent in western Texas (chart No. 3).