The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: Dangerousness and Incapacitation: A Predictive Evaluation of Sentencing Policy Reform in California Author(s): Kathleen Auerhahn Document No.: 189734 Date Received: August 20, 2001 Award Number: 99-IJ-CX-0043 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Dangerousness and Incapacitation: A Predictive Evaluation of Sentencing Policy Reform in California A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Kathleen Auerhahn September, 2000 PROPERTY OF National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Box 6000 Dissertation Committee: Rockville, MD 20849-6000~TI' Dr. Robert A. Hanneman, Chair Dr. Austin T. Turk Dr. Shaun Bowler This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. I copyright by Kathleen Auerhahn 2000 d 1 1 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Dissertation of Kathleen Auerhahn is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside I This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Acknowledgments While the author is primarily responsible for the contents of any dissertation, a project of this magnitude never represents only the efforts of one person. Along the way, many others helped me in various ways, some of which are evident in these pages, and others, while not necessarily apparent, were nonetheless instrumental in the completion of this work, if only through their contribution in the effort to preserve my sanity. I would like to thank the following individuals: First, I am hugely indebted to Bob Hanneman, for all of his support throughout the years. He is without question the finest teacher I have ever known. Words cannot express the debt I owe to Bob, for shaping me as a scholar, and a teacher - and he also contributed mightily to the preservation of my sanity over these years. Throughout my time at UC Riverside, Austin Turk has taught, guided, and challenged me to be a better theorist and scholar. A seemingly innocuous notation on the margin of a manuscript would sometimes send me reeling off into weeks of research - which would manifest itself as a single sentence or note in the manuscript, but one that ultimately became essential to the argument I was making. He’s been doing this to me and other students for years. I hope the others appreciate and grow from it as much as I have. I am grateful to Bob Figlio for the time I was able to work with him. Although I missed his input at the last stages of my dissertation due to his leaving UCR, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn so much from him while I had the chance. iv This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Thanks also to Shaun Bowler, who I managed to trick into giving me a lot of help and guidance throughout the project. I would like to thank the sociology department staff for their assistance over the years: Renee DeGuire, Anna Wire, Terry DeAnda, Cathy Carlson, and Robin Whittington. Anna Wire deserves extra thanks, not just for the myriad ways in which she assists the graduate students, but for being such a wonderful and supportive friend. I am also especially grateful to Robin Whittington for her extensive assistance in securing and administering funding for my project. To avoid making crucial and embarrassing omissions (and to protect the innocent), I will refrain from listing the names of friends and family who supported and encouraged me in various ways. They know who they are, and they have all my thanks. It’s been a long hard road, and my friends and family have been instrumental in getting me through it. Validation data were provided by the California Criminal Justice Statistics Center (CJSC) and the California Department of Corrections. Linda Nance of the CJSC was especially helpful. I am also grateful to Helen Ross and Alexis Alvarez, who provided invaluable last-minute assistance with data entry. This project was supported by grant number 1999-IJ-CX-0043, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. V This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Dangerousness and Incapacitation: A Predictive Evaluation of Sentencing Policy Reform in California Kathleen Auerhahn Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Sociology University of California, Riverside, September, 2000 Dr. Robert A. Hanneman, Chair In the last three decades, the United States has witnessed explosive growth in prison populations. At the same time, an unprecedented amount of sentencing reform activity has taken place. Many have argued that the primary objective of criminal punishment in recent years has been the incapacitation of dangerous criminal sin order to ensure the public safety. Nowhere is this more evident than in California, where the most far-reaching and widely implemented Three-Strikes habitual offender law was passed in 1994, following a period of twenty years of unprecedented growth in the state’s incarcerated population. The passage of Three Strikes represents the culmination of several decades’ worth of criminal sentencing policy reform in the state. Although individual reforms may have been constructed to serve diverse ends, it is worthwhile to examine the cumulative effects of these reforms with respect to selective incapacitation. It is also important to consider the systemic nature of the criminal justice system, in that structural constraints (such as facility capacity) may have an effect on the implementation vi This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. and outcome of specific reforms. Existing data and statistical methods are inadequate to examine the systemic effects of reforms with respect to the incapacitation of dangerous criminals. The methodological strategies employed differ from those used in prior research both in terms of a new approach to the conceptualization of dangerousness and the evaluation criteria of selective incapacitation policies, as well as the use of simulation modeling in order to reproduce and evaluate the California criminal justice system. The retrospective analyses indicate that these policies have not been terribly successful in terms of selecting the most dangerous offenders for incarceration. Prospective analyses conducted using the simulation methodology construct “possible futures” for the California criminal justice system under a variety of sentencing structures and policies, including geriatric release and narrowing of Three Strikes eligibility. These analyses indicate that California’s Three Strikes law will not function as an effective means for incapacitating dangerous offenders, and offer alternatives that aim to guide policy makers in the direction of constructing and implementing sentencing policies that will be successful at targeting and incapacitating dangerous offenders, vii This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction Page 1 Chapter Two Criminal Punishment in Civil Society: Page 25 Purpose and Method Chapter Three Criminal Sentencing Policy and Page 64 Paradigm Change in California Chapter Four Selective Incapacitation Page 100 Chapter Five Dangerousness Page 122 Chapter Six Assessing the Level of Dangerousness in Page 146 the California Criminal Justice System Chapter Seven Modeling the California Criminal Justice Page 17 1 System, Part I : Reproducing and Evaluating the Past Chapter Eight Modeling the California Criminal Justice Page 222 System, Part 11 : Predictive Evaluation Chapter Nine Conclusion: Choosing California’s Page 261 Future Technical Appendix Data Sources and Estimation Procedures Page 300 ..