The Depravity Standard for Violent Crimes.

In violent crime cases, aggravating factors in United States criminal codes, such as "heinous," "atrocious," or "depraved," are used to distinguish elements of the crime warranting more severe sentencing. These aggravating terms are vaguely defined and applied arbitrarily in violent cases. This paper details the development of a 25 item Depravity Standard to operationalize an evidence-based approach to distinguishing the worst of violent crimes.