After doing the Timeline for the HCP, I had a good idea of where my project was going. I had a large number of sources and a large amount of information that I tried to include in this initial draft, but that often led to long, confusing sentences. This was also the first time I ever had to write an abstract for a paper, and it is very obvious that I merely threw a bunch of facts from the paper together, rather than having a holistic perspective.  

Abstract: The context of my project is the practice of split sentencing as a criminal punishment in the various counties across California. Since the establishment of split sentencing as an acceptable punishment in the United States in 1984, and the Supreme Court’s mandate for California to reduce its state prison population in 2011, split sentencing has had a varying degree of use across the state. Through the state’s Realignment policy started in 2011 through the passage of the AB 109 legislation, the state prison population has decreased to the Court’s mandated levels, but county jail populations have soared, and many new bills, such as Proposition 47 and Proposition 36 have reduced the severity of many punishments across the state and altered the situation of many defendants in the courtrooms and jails across the state. Despite this, taxpayer dollars are still being used in nonuniform ways and in great disparity across counties, where the cost of state imprisonments has a nearly 10 fold range for major counties. In this way, counties that tend to have higher rates of split sentencing and less sentences to state prisons are subsidizing those counties that have lower rates of split sentencing and more sentences to state prisons. What effect has split sentencing had on the reduction of California’s state prison population? How has the practice of split sentencing affected county jails? How did such disparity in split sentences across the counties come to be and what changes are available to right the state’s custody system? This project gives the historical overview of split sentencing in California, and brings the various uses of this system to light in the modern day context of the state. Finally, it gives evidence for the establishment of uniformity in the state regarding such an effective policy.

Intro: As the detective searches every corner and square inch of the Riverside County home, the woman sits and calmly watches T.V. Upon her release from jail, she was given the freedom to return to her home and regular life – with a catch. Under the Split Sentencing practice, the woman is not required to spend the entirety of her sentence in custody; rather, she spends a portion behind bars and then the rest under supervision and programs for integration back into society. Probation officers regularly search her house and belongings for any illegal substances. She is very transparent with her officer, even admitting to doing meth a few days ago, although they cannot convict her of that. She is warned about the consequences of continuing to use illegal drugs – first a rehab program, and then back to jail. Her desire to stop using them is well heard, and, if she does, split sentencing will have accomplished its goal – to reduce the jail populations through earlier releases and reduced rates of rearrest. Supporters of split sentencing cite reduced recidivism through helping ex-convicts adjust to life after jail, especially those with mental health or substance abuse issues. According to Stanford University management professor, Lawrence M. Wein, split sentencing would lower jail populations by 20% and cut the recidivism rate by 7%. At the same time, when California taxpayers “pay $51,889 per year per state prison inmate,” split sentencing and state prison sentencing in the state of California has major disparities among counties (Males and Buchen, 1). Whereas Contra Costa County uses split sentencing in 86% of their cases, Los Angeles County uses it in only 5% of theirs (Goldstein 1). Males and Buchen state that “the 17 counties that sent their felons to prison at a higher rate than the state average [including LA county] cost state taxpayers nearly $190 million more in 2012 than they would have if they had imprisoned their felons at the statewide rate. Conversely, the 41 counties that imprisoned their felony arrestees at a rate below the state average [including Contra Costa county] saved state taxpayers nearly $190 million in 2012 than if they used imprisonment at the state average.” Split sentencing since Realignment has become a nonuniform and costly problem for the state of California.
Split sentencing, where a convict is able to serve up to half their sentence outside a prison, is not an old, tried and true process that has withstood the test of time, especially in California (Wikipedia). Beginning with the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, the Federal government created alternative sentences that “established probation as a stand-alone sentencing option, rather than as an instrument used in suspending prison sentences” (United States Sentencing Commission, 2). This Act adopted this policy into the federal sentencing guidelines, which includes a Sentencing Table. From this table, sentences are divided into four zones from A to D, which specify the degree of punishment and period of prison stay. While the 2015 updated Sentencing Table has “effectively abolished the use of ‘split sentences’...the drafters of the Sentencing Reform Act noted that the functional equivalent of the split sentence could be ‘achieved...’ by providing that a defendant serve a term of imprisonment followed by a period of supervised release,” thereby continuing the practice of split sentencing (Sentencing Table, Commentary, Background). Therefore, as specified in §5C1.1 of the Sentencing Table, a Zone C punishment may include a “sentence of imprisonment that includes a term of supervised release with a condition that substitutes community confinement or home detention...provided that at least one-half of the minimum term is satisfied by imprisonment.” Through the Sentencing Reform Act’s revision of the Sentencing Guidelines and Table, the practice of Split Sentencing became an acceptable practice within the United States.
The practice of split sentencing reached California through its prison reform. The class action civil rights cases of Coleman v. Brown and Plata v. Brown, were combined into one case where both were suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for breaches of the 8th Amendment of the United States because of the poor conditions in California State prisons. After a special three judge court decided that California had to reduce its prison population in order to provide better care, upon which the Supreme Court also upheld in its decision in Brown v. Plata (2011). Forced to comply with the Supreme Courts’s decision, the State of California became creative with prison reform. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, in April of 2011, the California Legislature and Governor Brown passed Assembly Bill 109, which “effectively shifted responsibility for certain populations of offenders from the state to the counties” (County of Los Angeles Probation Department). Most notably, was that after serving time in the state prisons, “current non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders...are to report to local county probation officers” rather than to the state parole officers (County of Los Angeles Probation Department). In this way, the practice of split sentencing for a small population in California was altered in such a way to give the county jails more responsibilities. At the same time, the overcrowding of the state prisons was being transferred to the county jails. According to Christopher Petrella in Prison Legal News, “ the egregious conditions that first led to legal intervention against the state’s prison system – overcrowding, poor medical and dental care, and inadequate mental health treatment – are now being repeated at the county level.” Such an effect has obviously had an impact in the policy that many county jails are implementing, one of which being split sentencing. In research done by the Public Policy Institute of California, it was determined that, “split sentencing can serve as a fiscally sound alternative for counties” (Goldstein 1). However, the rates at which the Californian counties utilize split sentencing are widely varying and a topic of intense debate.