The Kansas Sentencing Commission is an administrative agency that is part of the executive branch of Kansas state government

State government

A state government is the government of a subnational entity in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or be subject to the direct control of the federal government...

. The purpose of the Kansas Sentencing Commission is to maintain an effective, fair, and efficient sentencing

Sentence (law)

In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...

 system for the state of ansas]}.

Mission and Philosophy

The agency's stated guiding philosophy is that the imposition of incarceration

Incarceration

Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...

 should be used in only the most serious offenders. The 17 member commission is also charged to develop a sentencing guidelines model or grid based on fairness and equity and...provide a mechanism for linking justice and corrections

Corrections

In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes....

 policies.

History

The Kansas Sentencing Commission was established in 1989 as a result of the passage of Senate Bill 50 that same year. The enabling legislation

Enabling act

An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it for authorization or legitimacy the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation...

, "The Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act" is set forth in K.S.A. 21-4701 et seq. The Commission's offices are located in Topeka, Kansas.