Criminal Justice System Overview

• These notes cover California Corrections and sentencing structures.

AB 109: Public Safety Realignment Act

• This act was prompted by violations of the 8th amendment, poor prison health, inmate deaths, and overcrowding.
• The goal was to achieve 137.5% capacity in correctional facilities.
• It affected lower-level felons, lower-level releases, and parole violators, with 3 "nons": non-violent, non-serious, and non-sexual offenders.
• People from state prisons were moved to county jails.
• This resulted in decreased prison populations but increased jail populations, putting pressure on county systems.
• States did not handle the transition of individuals from prison to jail effectively.

Propositions

• 3-Strikes Law: A rule where individuals with 2 prior felony convictions receive harsher sentences if they commit a third crime, aiming to deter repeat offenders, but it has led to overcrowding.
• Prop 47: Reclassified property and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. It led to decreased prison populations and increased jail populations, with an overall slight decrease in incarcerated individuals, with the goal of releasing offenders to reduce overcrowding.
• Prop 57: Non-violent offenders are considered for parole after serving their primary term, offering a credit system for offenders to "buy back" their time.
• Prop 36 (2024): Somewhat reversed Prop 47's effects by reclassifying certain misdemeanors to felonies, increases sentences for certain drug and theft crimes, and has the potential to increase prison populations due to stricter punishments for property and drug crimes.

Corrections, Punishment, and Sentencing

• Corrections: Incarceration is just confinement, while corrections is a whole system.
• Corrections includes a variety of programs to manage individuals accused of criminal offenses, and considers community-based programs like rehab, probation, and parole.
• Main Purpose of Corrections: to carry out the criminal sentence.
• Corrections Management: Managed by Federal, State, and Local Agencies.
• Less serious offenders receive probation, where the court sets aside a prison sentence if the offender abides by certain conditions.
• Those awaiting trial or those who committed misdemeanors are sentenced to less than a year in jail.

Felony vs. Misdemeanor

• Felonies are crimes punishable by a year or more in state prison.
• Misdemeanors consist of less serious crimes, punished by jail time only.

Reasons for No Imprisonment

• Most crimes do not end in imprisonment due to underreporting, fines, and parole.
• About 1.8% of crimes result in imprisonment.

Purposes of Punishment

• Deterrence: Discourages crime.
  • General Deterrence: Discourages a group from committing a crime based on punishment
  • Specific Deterrence: Prevents someone from repeating a offense.
• Rehabilitation: Builds offenders into productive members of society.
• Incapacitation: Removes individuals from society to prevent harm.
• Retribution: Seeks "eye for an eye" justice.

Traditional Punishments

• Imprisonment
• Transportation (Banishment)
• Corporal Punishment & Death
• Public humiliation

Sentencing Guidelines

• Sentencing guidelines consist of Offender score, which is the Criminal History Score and Offense severity score.

Sentencing Structures

• Structured sentences use sentencing guidelines with an x-y axis of offender score and offense severity.
• Mandatory (minimum) sentencing enforces a sentence specifying minimum incarceration for specific offenders.
• Determinate sentencing involves a fixed term of years determined in advance.
• Indeterminate sentencing involves incarceration with minimum and maximum terms determined by judicial or legislative authority, with release decided by parole board.

Sentence Reduction

• Clemency
• Good time

Jails

• Jails are primarily used for misdemeanors and those awaiting trial.

Pretrial Release Methods

• ROR (Release on Recognizance): release based on community ties without bail.
• Bail: requires payment, amount set by judge.

Controversies over Bail

• Accusations of being Capitalist, Racist, Classist and Ineffective.
• Questionable as a good enough incentive

Plea Bargains

• A plea bargain is a deal between the prosecuting attorney and the defendant.
• A deal with the state avoids trial and the possibility of harsher punishment.
• Plea bargains are more likely among lower-class offenders with public defenders due to system overload
• Defendants without private attorneys are more likely to take a plea.
• More likely with lower-class offenders because of overburdened judicial process and overworked public defenders.

"Special Needs Inmates"

• Chemical Dependency
• Mental Health
• Gang Affiliations
• Communicable Disease

Biggest "Special Needs" Populations in Jail

• Chemical Dependency and Mental Health

Why Jails Serve Those with Mental Health Needs

• Hospitals for mental closed, shifting responsibilities.
• Sequential Intercept Model: Mentally ill people get evaluated to get treatment and get out of jail
• Law enforcement reform/training towards community based training
• Re-entry programs to reintegrate members into society.

"Podular Jail" Benefits

• "Podular" architectural design and management policies emphasize staff-inmate interaction.
• Self-contained living area for about 12-24 inmates.
• Reduced incidents, better interaction and programming, and more direct supervision

Direct Supervision Jails

• Correctional supervision involves staff having direct physical interaction with inmates.
• Advantages include reduced problem behavior, secure conditions, and management techniques to encourage positive behavior.

Probation Supervision

• Probation: community supervision imposed by a judge instead of a jail sentence.
• Responsibilities of probation officer are Case investigation and Client supervision.
• Client supervision involves monitoring court-ordered conditions, with most probationers having 3+ restrictions.

Probation Conditions

• Standard: Base conditions applied to every probationer.
• Punitive: Increase pains of probation; examples include fines and restitution.
• Treatment: Involves mental health or chemical dependency treatment.

Probation Services Challenge

• Law enforcement aspect concern is public safety
• Law enforcement aspect Focusis risk
• Law enforcement aspect Operationincludes surveillance and drug tests.
• Social work aspect concern is humanitarian.
• Social work aspect focus is reformation
• Social work aspect operation involves assistance, service, support, and programs.

Ways Probation is Terminated

• Successful discharge has Early or Normal termination.
• Termination from a Unsuccessful revocation can occur through arrest or technical violation of rules.

Recidivism

• California defines it as re-conviction within three years after release from probation, parole, or incarceration.
• Other definitions include arrests, official data, and self-report.

Agency Recidivism Preferences

• Courts look at re-conviction/filing new charges.
• Law enforcement focuses on re-arrest.
• Correctional looks at re-conviction.

Intermediate Sanctions Motivation

• Alternative to prison or middle ground for probation.
• Intended for felons not succeeding on probation, traditional probation not working for offenders, and imprisonment deemed too harsh.

Intermediate Sanctions Examples

• Intensive Supervision Probation (ISP)
• House arrest
• Community service
• Bootcamp

Main Consequence to Intermediate Sanctions

• Technical violations due to net widening.

Net Widening

• Widening occurs more people end up under supervision who wouldn't have before.
• Offenders face restrictive programs that cause them to become further entrenched in the system.

Common IS Forms in CA

• Work Release
• House Arrest
• Intensive supervision probation
• Electronic monitoring

ISP Consequences

• Findings of Petersilia & Turner, 1993
• Increase in technical violations.
• Findings from Found no difference in rearrest rates, only tech violation.
• Pioneered the surveillance effect.

Attractive Intermediate Sanction

• Day fines are attractive because They are not classist
• Equitable
• Based on income
• Calculations is from The fine is based on a standard unit based on the crime and the net daily daily of a person.
• Fine Calculationsis based on crime severity and person's income.

Interchangeability Principle

• Idea is that different types of intermediate sanctionscan be calibrated so that they be measured quantitatively.

Gabe Rosales' Californian Model Pillars

• Dynamic security consists of officers engaging with inmates positively
• Building a relationship between the officer and the inmates
• Correctional staff taking on a new persona, can still be secure without treating others like garbage.
• Normalization consistso of creating an atmosphere that models the world.
• Pictures of nature and or real nature like trees
• Peer mentorship consistsof inmates that support each other along with trauma informed measures.
• Recognizing that incarceration itself is trauma.

Differences Between Succeeding and Failing Individuals

• "The biggest difference between those who succeed and those who do not is soberness, a good support system, and job training."

Non-Designated Programming Facility

• Such a facility Houses special needs, those in protective custody, and general custody.
• Removes the racial and general prison politics.
• Houses inmates for rehabilitative programs.

Effects of Incarcerated Parents on Educational Success

• 15% kids graduate from college if father incarcerated and 2% kids graduate from college if mother incarcerated.
• With incarcerated mothers, children have a higher potential of falling into crime and/or being imprisoned in their lives.

Gap of Mental Health Needs

• Women in jails receive fewer resources in jail due to male dominated areas.
• Jails are not built for long term stay and do not have the necessary programs.
• Inmates need to prove their mental health needs by "flipping out."

Explore California's Public Safety Realignment Act (AB 109) and its impacts. Understand sentencing types, probation vs. parole, and the goals of punishment like rehabilitation. Learn about factors determining parole consideration under Proposition 57.