The Council monitors and evaluates the operation and effect of guidelines after they have been implemented. The purpose of this work is to understand:

  • the impact the guideline may have had on sentencing, and
  • whether it has been implemented as the Council intended.

What we learn from these evaluations may lead us to revise guidelines.

We use a range of different approaches and types of analysis in our evaluations, including bespoke, targeted data collections in courts, qualitative interviews with sentencers, transcript analysis and analysis of administrative data.

Find: Guideline evaluations