Staff at the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) recently published an article focused on the impact of COVID-19 on sentencing practices and outcomes in the American Journal of Criminal Justice (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-023-09730-y). The article provides the first empirically based examination of the impacts of the pandemic on criminal sentencing practices, and any associated racial disparities, by comparing outcomes and trends before and after the onset of the pandemic. The paper employs two theoretical frameworks (focal concerns and the liberation hypothesis) to motivate competing expectations regarding sentencing behavior and disparities. The paper was coauthored by Jordan Zvonkovich (PCS employee and PSU graduate student), Matthew Kleiman (Senior Deputy Director of PCS), Rhys Hester (visiting scholar at PCS through the partnership between PCS and PSU/CJRC), and C. Clare Strange (former post-doctoral scholar at PSU and the CJRC).