Jonathan W. Caudill

This book investigates the unintended and deadly consequences of criminal justice reforms through observing the effects of prison depopulation sentencing reform on county jails. This mixed-methods case study explores how California’s sentencing reform efforts in 2011 (Assembly Bill 109) and 2014 (Proposition 47) to depopulate California state prisons impacted California county jail inmate culture and experiences. Its results demonstrate how California county jails inmate culture became more like prison inmate culture, resulting in increased inmate deaths and a deadlier county jail experience. Of particular value in this exploration are the theoretical and real-world policy implications of legislation on correctional facility administration. From a theoretical perspective, this work improves our understanding of the interconnected criminal justice system. From a policy perspective, implications cover unintended collateral consequences and mechanisms to reduce them. This volume is ideal for policy makers and researchers of criminal justice reform.

What should be done with minors who kill, maim, defile, and destroy the lives of others? The state of Texas deals with some of its most serious and violent youthful offenders through “determinate sentencing,” a unique sentencing structure that blends parts of the juvenile and adult justice systems. Once adjudicated via determinate sentencing, offenders are first incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). As they approach age eighteen, they are either transferred to the Texas prison system to serve the remainder of their original determinate sentence or released from TYC into Texas’s communities.The first long-term study of determinate sentencing in Texas, Lost Causes examines the social and delinquent histories, institutionalization experiences, and release and recidivism outcomes of more than 3,000 serious and violent juvenile offenders who received such sentences between 1987 and 2011. The authors seek to understand the process, outcomes, and consequences of determinate sentencing, which gave serious and violent juvenile offenders one more chance to redeem themselves or to solidify their place as the next generation of adult prisoners in Texas. The book’s findings-that about 70 percent of offenders are released to the community during their most crime-prone years instead of being transferred to the Texas prison system and that about half of those released continue to reoffend for serious crimes-make Lost Causes crucial reading for all students and practitioners of juvenile and criminal justice.