Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976
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INTRODUCTION
The Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976,1
operative as of July 1, 1977,2 institutes a system of determinate
sentencing for the vast majority of crimes not punishable by life
imprisonment or death. It has been called '[t]he most impor-
tant criminal justice measure to pass the Legislature this ses-
sion.3 The Determinate Sentencing Act's (hereafter DSA)
comprehensive rewriting of the criminal statutes will undoubt-
edly have far-reaching consequences to the administration and
effectiveness of California's penal system. This article will
summarize and briefly analyze these new sentencing provi-
sions. In addition, certain portions of the new law susceptible
to amendment or addition prior to July 1, 1977 will be indi-
cated.
LEGISLATIVE PURPOSE
Prevention would accordingly seem to be the chief and
only universal purpose of punishment. The law threatens
certain pains if you do certain things, intending thereby to
give you a new motive for not doing them. If you persist in
doing them, it has to inflict the pains in order that its
threats may continue to be believed.
-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes4
In applying the present indeterminate sentencing scheme,
a California court sentences an offender to the term prescribed
by law without specifying the length of imprisonment. The
Adult Authority or Women's Board of Terms and Paroles, two
administrative agencies operating within the Department of
Corrections, determines the actual length of the term, within
1. Senate Bill 42 (Nejedly and Way) shall be known as and may be cited as the
Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976. Ch. 1139, § 350, [1976], Cal. Laws
Reg. Sess. (9 WEsT CAL. LEG. Smwv. 1976).
2. SB 57 (Robbins) would delay the effective date from July 1, 1977 to January 1,
1978. On February 3, 1977, SB 57 was defeated by one vote, but may be reconsid-
ered if the Brown Administration's drafted amendments to the Act are not passed
prior to July 1, 1977. Los Angeles Daily Journal, Feb. 4, 1977, at 1, col. 3.
3. Green and Azevedo, Legislative Report: Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of
1976, 3 Forum 1A, 1A (Sept. 1976).
4. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, THE COMMON LAW 46 (1881).
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Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976
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