Profiles in Parole Release and Revocation Pennsylvania

Prison sentences in Pennsylvania are indeterminate for the vast majority of cases.2 Pennsylvania has adoptedmandatory minimum penalties and a "three strikes" law for certain crimes. The state also has a permanent Commission on Sentencing which formulated sentencing guidelines, effective in 1982.3 Although judges must consider these guidelines, and must give reasons for sentences that depart from them, the sentencing guidelines are effectively advisory: they are not legally enforced on appeal.