The Inapplicability of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to Computer Related Crimes...
Brian J. Fischer · SSRN Electronic Journal · 1996
The thrust of my article is to examine the current problems federal courts are having (and had) in sentencing computer criminals without the benefit of a specific U.S. Sentencing Guideline. Federal courts are constrained by the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines adopted in the late eighties to prevent the great discrepencies in sentencing across the country. The article reviews the legislative history surrounding computers and the internet, and provides many illustrative examples of some legendary computer criminals. Although technically a legal paper, it bridges both the real world and the legal world (fiction?). Finally, the article calls attention for the need to adopt a new sentencing guideline or revise the current guidelines in order to treat computer criminals and hackers less harshly than an armed robber.