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19 Crim. L. Bull. 405 (1983)
The California Determinate Sentence Law

handle is hein.journals/cmlwbl19 and id is 407 raw text is: The California Determinate Sentence Law By Jonathan D. Casper,* David Brereton** and David Nealt The California Determinate Sentence Law, implemented in 1977, markedly changed that state's sentencing practice. From an indeterminate sentence system with exceptionally high maximum terms and extensive pa- role discretion, the new system gives control over sentencing and sentence length to courtroom participants, particularly the judge and prosecutor. This article explores the implementation of the new law in three counties. The authors' research allows them to assess the effects of the new law on prison commitment rates and on the rate and timing of guilty pleas, and its integration into the plea-bargaining process. Although short-term comparison of before and after periods has often been taken as evidence that the new law has had substantial impact, this assessment of the evidence suggests that if longer time periods are taken into account, it is not clear that the new sentencing law has caused substan- tial change in sentencing patterns or disposition processes. This article will be especially interesting to those in the public policy arena and to lawyers who are undecided about the relative merits and demerits of a California-type approach to sentence reform. Introduction In July 1977, California began a major reform in its policy dealing with prison sentences. The Uniform Determinate Sentence Law (DSL) replaced a system of indeterminate sentencing (ISL) that had been in existence for sixty years. Long a leader in penal reform, California had been one of the early adopters of the rehabilitative or medical model of imprisonment, as well as its concomitant, indeterminate sentencing, when this wave of reform swept the nation in the first decades of the * Jonathan D. Casper is Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. He has previously taught at Stanford and Yale and his research in recent years has focused on plea bargaining and criminal courts. ** David Brereton is on the faculty of the Legal Studies Department at LaTrobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. His current research deals with the Australian Arbitration Commission. t David Neal teaches law at the University of New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia. This research was supported by Grant 79-AX-0042 from the National Institute of Justice. All responsibility for the arguments and conclusions presented here rests with the authors. 405

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