Legislative Changes Are Needed To Handle Certain Cases Under the Federal Youth Corrections Act

GAO issued a report on a review of federal parole practices to assess how well the U.S. Parole Commission carries out its activities and to determine the extent of coordination between the Commission and those federal government components which provide information to the Commission for its use in making parole release decisions. The GAO observations in this report are based on the earlier review of federal parole practices.

GAO found that the 1979 amendments to the Federal Magistrates Act created disparities in the sentences that may be imposed by magistrates, compared with those of judges, under the Federal Youth Corrections Act for petty offenses and misdemeanors. Both judges and magistrates may impose a 5-year term of probation for adults. A judge can also impose a 5-year term of probation under the Federal Youth Corrections Act, but a magistrate may impose only a 6-month or 1-year term of probation for petty offenses and misdemeanors, respectively. The maximum sentences that judges and magistrates may impose on adult offenders for petty offenses and misdemeanors are 6 months and 1 year, respectively. These are the same sentences which the 1979 amendments to Federal Magistrates Act authorized magistrates to impose under the Federal Youth Corrections Act. However, the Federal Youth Corrections Act provided that a judge will impose a 6-year sentence on a youthful offender for all offenses. An additional issue that was brought to the attention of GAO was the need for judges and magistrates to have the authority to impose a split sentence involving both incarceration and probation on youthful offenders. The Commission makes parole release determinations and the Federal Probation System supervises youthful offenders sentenced to incarceration by magistrates under the Federal Youth Corrections Act. However, their sentences are so short that few, if any, benefits are obtained from parole consideration or parole supervision.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Arnold P. Jones Team: General Accounting Office: General Government Division Phone: (202) 512-7797