Sentencing Guidelines

German sentencing law operates within the tension between normative control and judicial discretion. Despite its central importance to the criminal justice system, it lacks binding and clearly structured standards capable of ensuring transparent, consistent, and predictable sentencing. Empirical research reveals regional and individual disparities in sentencing practice, thereby raising fundamental questions concerning equality before the law, legal certainty, and proportionality of punishment.
This doctoral project examines whether and in what form sentencing guidelines – as estab­lished in numerous foreign jurisdictions – could contribute to a more structured framework for judicial decision-making. While in the German discourse, concerns about the “mathemati­za­tion” of sentencing often prevail, international models demonstrate that guideline systems do not necessarily lead to rigid or inflexible structures, but rather that they can contribute to greater consistency, transparency, and comprehensibility.
The aim of the project is to determine how sentencing guidelines could be integrated into Ger­man sentencing law in accordance with constitutional requirements and core principles of criminal theory. To this end, it undertakes a comparative legal analysis of various models and evaluates their compatibility with – and potential adaptability to – the German legal system.
The research project aspires to contribute to the broader debate on the modernization of Ger­man criminal law. By combining doctrinal analysis, comparative inquiry, and empirically informed perspectives, it seeks to develop an approach that improves the conditions for a rational, consistent, and just sentencing practice within the framework of German law.