Inside Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines: Why fraud cases rarely lead to prison

As the fraud crisis in Minnesota’s social services programs remains in the spotlight, state leaders have repeatedly called for people who steal taxpayer money to go to prison.

But defendants charged and convicted of fraud in the state’s court system largely end up sentenced to probation and rarely see in the inside of one Minnesota’s correctional facilities.

That’s due in large part to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, a framework judges utilize to determine how much time someone spends behind bars.

The grid — as it’s known to judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys — ranks crimes from most severe to least and assigns each defendant a score depending on their criminal history. The box they fall into on the grid shows a recommended sentence...