CrimeSentences reviews publicly available completed criminal cases to answer a narrow question: what target-offense prison terms were imposed in the verified cases we reviewed for a particular crime and city? The site is not a complete court database, and its observed values are not legal advice or a prediction.
Publication threshold
A crime article is eligible for publication only when at least two independent completed prosecution clusters provide supported target-offense outcomes with verified city conduct, conviction, disposition and sentence scope. Two cases alone are not enough. Comparable numerical terms may support an observed range; verified outcomes with different sentence types must instead be presented separately. Neither format creates an exception to the two-independent-prosecution threshold.
Case usability and range eligibility
A supported outcome may be useful context without being eligible for a numerical range. Reversed judgments, unresolved later dispositions, unallocated aggregate terms and unresolved exact-city evidence cannot supply verified endpoints. Life, suspended portions, probation and supervised release remain separately labeled.
Range-eligible sentences
A sentence enters the lowest/highest observed range only when the final disposition, target conviction, exact-city offense conduct, jurisdiction, sentence value, and count-specific sentence scope are supported by reliable sources. Multiple defendants or releases from one prosecution count as one cluster. Two or more defendants in one prosecution may be described as a same-case comparison, but do not satisfy the independent-prosecution threshold by themselves.
Aggregate and non-comparable outcomes
An aggregate term covering multiple convictions is not assigned to one offense unless the source expressly identifies that offense’s term. Life sentences are not converted to guessed years. Probation, suspended sentences, and conditional discharge are not treated as zero years. Months may be converted mathematically to years while the original value is retained.
Observed range
“Lowest observed” and “highest observed” use only the range-eligible cases reviewed for that article. They are not statutory minimums or maximums, averages, medians, typical outcomes, citywide results, or predictions.
City and jurisdiction verification
The source must support that the relevant criminal conduct occurred inside the named city. Residence, arrest, courthouse, prosecutor office, county, metro area, or “near city” wording alone is insufficient. Multi-city cases are excluded from the numeric range unless the target-city count and its sentence are both separable.
State and federal cases
State/local and federal outcomes are researched and presented separately. They are never combined into one observed range.
Sources
We prioritize court records and opinions, prosecutors, state and local government sources, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies, and then reliable reporting when a primary source is unavailable. Retained sources must support the final outcome and the relevant facts.
Corrections and limitations
Publicly reported cases are a selected sample and may not represent all prosecutions. We do not calculate a citywide average from that sample. See our Editorial Standards and Corrections Policy.