The Growth of Imprisonment in California

Zimring, Franklin E.; Hawkins, Gordon

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.34.s1.83

Cited by 45 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…While sentencing reforms have often been linked to prison overcrowding, others posited that changes in sentencing structures or legislatively mandated punishments were not associated with the expansion of prison populations (Zimring & Hawkins, 1994). One of the goals of sentencing reforms have in fact been to moderate the rapid growth rate (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1998).…”

Section: Nexus Between Sentencing Reform and Prison Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of state sentencing policies on the U.S. prison population

Zhang

Maxwell

Vaughn

2009

Journal of Criminal Justice

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Section: Nexus Between Sentencing Reform and Prison Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of state sentencing policies on the U.S. prison population

Zhang

Maxwell

Vaughn

2009

Journal of Criminal Justice

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“…Most population projections rely on simple linear extrapolation of existing trends. However, as Zimring and Hawkins (1994) have pointed out, there is great danger in making simple projections in volatile periods of system growth (see also Greenwood et al, 1994Greenwood et al, , 1998. Dynamic systems simulation modeling permits the estimation of changing trends both retrospectively and prospectively.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do You Know Who Your Probationers Are? Using Simulation Modeling to Estimate the Composition of California’s Felony Probation Population, 1980–2000

Auerhahn¹

2007

Justice Quarterly

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“…1 California prison building barely kept up with increases in the state prison population: between 1980 and 1990, the state's prison population more than quadrupled, from 23,000 to 100,000 people (Zimring and Hawkins 1994). Between 1990 and2006, the California prison population nearly doubled again, reaching a high of 173,000 prisoners (Thompson 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Origins of and Need to Control Supermax Prisons

Reiter¹

2013

California Journal of Politics and Policy

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Supermaxes are prisons designed to impose long-term solitary confinement. Supermax prisoners spend 23 h or more per day in windowless cells. Technology, like centrally controlled automated cell doors and fluorescent lights that are never turned off, allows prisoners to be under constant surveillance, while minimizing all human contact. California built two of the first and largest supermaxes in 1988 and 1989. Corcoran State Prison and Pelican Bay State Prison, which together house more than 3000 prisoners in supermax conditions, were two of 23 new prisons built in California during the late twentieth century era of rapidly increasing incarceration rates and prison capacities. This article will address three stages of supermax operation in California: (1) the early, tumul tuous years of total administrative discretion and egregious abuses; (2) the middle years of controlled expansion and entrenchment of supermax use; and (3) the recent events and reforms initiated following a hunger strike in California's segregation units in the summer of 2011. The history of California's use of supermax prisons reveals both the role of administrative discretion in shaping the initial design and day-to-day operation of the institutions, as well as the perverse incentives that made these institutions increasingly invisible and decreasingly governable. Supermaxes, then, serve as an important piece of the story of mass incarceration in California, a microcosm of the larger trends in administration, law, and politics, which have created the social and economic behemoth of a state prison system facing Californians today.

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The Growth of Imprisonment in California

Cited by 45 publications

References 8 publications

The impact of state sentencing policies on the U.S. prison population

The impact of state sentencing policies on the U.S. prison population

Do You Know Who Your Probationers Are? Using Simulation Modeling to Estimate the Composition of California’s Felony Probation Population, 1980–2000

The Origins of and Need to Control Supermax Prisons

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