United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual 2025: Effective November 1, 2025

By: Sentencing Commission, United States

United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual 2025

The 2025 Guidelines Manual, issued by the United States Sentencing Commission, provides a comprehensive framework for sentencing in federal criminal cases. It reflects statutory directives, recent amendments, and judicial interpretation post-Booker. This edition emphasizes uniformity, transparency, and proportional punishment.

Table of Contents

Chapter One - Introduction, Authority, and General Principles

Chapter Two - Offense Conduct

Chapter Three - Adjustments

Chapter Four - Criminal History and Livelihood

Chapter Five - Sentencing Range and Options

Chapter Six - Sentencing Procedures and Plea Agreements

Chapter Seven - Violations of Probation and Supervised Release

Chapter Eight - Sentencing of Organizations

Appendices - A, B, and C (Volumes I-IV)

Chapter Summaries

Chapter One: Outlines the Commission's authority and core principles, detailing the structure of sentencing including a two-step process: calculating the guideline range and considering 3553(a) factors.

Chapter Two: Categorizes federal crimes into parts A through Z, including homicide, fraud, drug offenses, immigration violations, terrorism, public corruption, environmental crimes, and more. Each offense type includes detailed base levels and specific characteristics that impact sentencing severity.

Chapter Three: Provides adjustments based on victim impact, the offender's role, obstruction of justice, acceptance of responsibility, and early disposition programs. These influence the final sentencing level.

Chapter Four: Explores criminal history classifications, career offender status, and introduces adjustments for first-time (zero-point) offenders, allowing leniency in certain qualifying cases.

Chapter Five: Details the sentencing table, probation, imprisonment, supervised release, restitution, fines, and sentence implementation. It introduces policies for sentence modifications and departures.

Chapter Six: Focuses on procedures during sentencing, including plea agreements and the rights of crime victims, reinforcing procedural fairness and transparency.

Chapter Seven: Governs violations of probation and supervised release, providing structure for revocation and resentence based on the severity of non-compliance.

Chapter Eight: Applies to organizations, setting criteria for fines, probation, and remediation based on harm, culpability, and effective compliance programs. Encourages corporate ethics and responsibility.

Appendix A: A statutory index linking offenses to applicable guidelines.

Appendix B: Historical statutes, removed provisions, and prior guidelines development context.

Appendix C (Vols. I-IV): Contains all amendments from 1997 to 2025, documenting the evolution of federal sentencing policy.

This manual is a cornerstone of federal sentencing policy, designed to balance justice, deterrence, and rehabilitation within statutory limits.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G1DSXX71
• ISBN13: 9798349669019
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Liber Copia LLC
• Length: 554 Pages
• Weight: 2.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Very good, but not the same as the official manual

I buy the "official" guideline manual every year, but it has not been made available to the public yet this year, so I found this alternative (for 30% more than the price of the official) and decided to give it a shot. It's very good - it's the same size as the usual manual, and the contents are properly updated. The cover is the same shade of red as the official guideline manual this year, but the reason I gave it four stars is that the back cover and the side binding are inexplicably white with generic black lettering, instead of the corresponding red color of the cover, which doesn't look nice. The binding does not note the year, as it usually does. And neither of the inside of the front nor back covers have the sentencing table printed for quick reference, like the official does. Finally, it does not include this year's Appendix B and C volumes that would have come with the official manual. Still, I'm glad to have a nice, convenient hard copy until next November, but I hope that the official manual becomes available again next year.