A Method to Rank Criminal Charges by Statutory Exposure

A fundamental tenet of our criminal legal system is “proportionality”, the principle that more severe crimes are punished to a greater degree than less severe crimes. Despite this commitment to proportionality, determining how criminal penalties relate to one another is often difficult or impractical. In this paper, we describe a method for ranking criminal charges based upon statutory exposure to various punishments in their respective criminal statutes. We also provide advice for how jurisdictions can use statutory exposure rankings to investigate and resolve common issues