California’s correctional history is a story of punishment, scandal, and transformation. Since 1986, CJCJ has played a critical role in this history by advancing a bold vision of justice. Scroll down to see our comprehensive timeline of California’s prison system.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the state’s youth and adult systems were considered national models of reform. Prisons emphasized education, job training, and preparring for reentry. But by the 1970s, that vision unraveled. Political rhetoric shifted sharply toward retribution and control. Rising crime rates, public fear, and sensationalized media coverage fueled demands for tougher laws. Prisons filled and budgets swelled. “Tough on crime” became a winning political message. The 1976 Determinate Sentencing Law, which replaced individualized parole with fixed prison terms, signaled the end of California’s rehabilitative era.
California expanded sentences, restricted parole, and built new prisons across rural areas. Incarceration became an industry and a political tool. The human consequences devastated California’s communities. Prison expansion reached historic levels as new facilities were built across the state and marketed as economic lifelines for struggling rural towns. Law enforcement unions and prosecutors’ associations wielded immense political influence, shaping legislation and resisting sentencing reform.
CJCJ and a burgeoning reform movement warned about California’s dangerous, self-perpetuating system of punishment. Dr. Jerome G. Miller, one of the most influential reformers in American correctional history, founded CJCJ in 1986 as part of a bold national vision. Miller, best known for closing the Massachusetts youth prisons in the early 1970s, sought to establish a national network of independent, community-based reform organizations. Among the organization’s early leaders were Vincent Schiraldi and Daniel (Dan) Macallair, two reformers deeply influenced by Miller’s vision. Schiraldi, a former youth counselor, believed that the justice system’s obsession with incarceration undermined community safety and equity. Macallair, who had worked as an educator in juvenile facilities, brought a practitioner’s understanding of how bureaucratic inertia and political fear sustained failed institutions.
CJCJ soon became a small but influential counterweight to California’s powerful correctional establishment. We advanced a bold new reform strategy: combine rigorous research and analysis with policy engagement to challenge the reactionary dominance of this punitive ideology. CJCJ’s first major initiative was a court-referred alternative-sentencing program that offered individualized sentencing recommendations at the request of defense attorneys for individuals facing incarceration. The program demonstrated that effective communitysanctions could enhance public safety while reducing imprisonment.
Executive Director Macallair later advised multiple Little Hoover Commission studies on corrections and sentencing. He regularly testified in the California State Legislature, urging oversight of sentencing practices and fiscal accountability for counties with disproportionate imprisonment rates. When California enacted “Three Strikes and You’re Out,” one of the harshest sentencing laws in the nation, CJCJ stood in strong opposition. Through research, partnerships, and public education, we demonstrated that imprisoning drug users neither reduced substance abuse nor enhanced public safety. Instead, it drained resources from treatment and prevention. CJCJ’s Dr. Mike Males exposed vast county-level disparities in sentencing. His findings revealed that incarceration rates were driven more by local politics than by crime rates. This work led to the creation of our California Sentencing Institute (CASI), a statewide resource that transformed the analysis of sentencing patterns in policymaking.
Through CJCJ’s 40-years of advocacy, California began to reimagine its approach to justice. We confronted California’s most powerful institutions. This includes the prison guards’ union, prosecutorial associations, and architects of “tough-on-crime” politics. The state’s prison population declined dramatically as policymakers embraced Public Safety Realignment (AB 109), which shifted responsibility for many lower-level offenses from state prisons to county supervision and community-based programs. Other reforms included limiting the “Three Strikes” law impact to serious and violent offenses; Proposition 47 that reclassified low-level felonies to reduce unnecessary imprisonment; and Proposition 57, which expanded parole opportunities and second chances.
CJCJ proved that reform grounded in evidence and humanity could overcome even the most entrenched interests. We’ve helped transform California’s justice system, replacing fear with facts, retribution with rehabilitation, and silence with conscience.
CJCJ’s work transcends California’s failed cycle of incarceration. Please scroll down to learn about this history. We need a new path forward built on justice, not punishment.
