CJCJ's Executive Director Daniel Macallair, is a practitioner-in-residence at San Francisco State University (SFSU)'s Department of Criminal Justice Studies. These slides are from his California Corrections System course materials.

1. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
California corrections at the beginning of
20th
century
Growing disillusionment with the congregate system
Two juvenile reform schools reduce the number of juveniles in
the state prisons
Increased crowding at San Quentin and Folsom
Folsom designated prison for recidivists
Concern over conditions of confinement for women
Harsh control methods primary means of controlling inmate
population
Impact of convict labor law (1879) reduced inmate work
options
Minimum use of parole
Executions now carried out at San Quentin (1893)

2. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
12 Year old San Quentin Inmate (1905)

3. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
San Quentin Scandal (1903)
“California boasts its place in the front rank of
State, but her prisons lag a generation behind
the better class of Eastern Penitentiaries. The
two prisons are schools of vice and
universities of crime.”

4. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
State legislative investigation reveals:
• Severe crowding in both prisons (San Quentin -1500
inmates in 640 cells - 234% of capacity)
• No system of inmate classification or segregation
• Frequent use of the notorious straight jacket

5. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
Scandal results
• Created widespread demand for reform
• Renewed calls for indeterminate sentence, classification,
and segregation
• Demand for separate facilities for women and removal of
children
• Cry to emulate “standards set in the East”
• Anti-convict sentiment and backlash against reform
• Firing of the controversial warden John Tompkins

6. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
Warden Tompkins on prison reform
• Advocated increased
use of straitjacket
• Eliminate state
prisons and “herd”
inmates onto an
“island”
• Demanded rapid-fire
artillery to quell prison
uprisings

7. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
Strait Jacket

8. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
Indeterminate Sentencing Law adopted
(1916)
• Legislature established minimum and maximum
sentences
• Intention was to reduce sentencing disparity and relieve
overcrowding
• Deemed necessary to reduce unnecessary short
sentences imposed by lenient judges
• Remained California’s method of sentencing until 1976

9. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
Battle for California State Reformatory
• Advocated by California Prison Commission
• Given momentum by San Quentin Scandal
• First authorizing legislation passed in 1934
• Prison based classification “male felons judged capable
of reformation”
• Building efforts stalls due to legislative inertia
• New impetus after San Quentin scandal revealing
serious violence and inhumane conditions

10. www.cjcj.org
© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
California Institution for Men at Chino:
California’s first reformatory prison
• Kenyon Scudder former probation officer appointed first
warden
• Abolished practice of using prison jobs as political
rewards
• Staff were selected based on perceived abilities
• Selected the most tractable inmates
• Racially integrated unlike Folsom and San Quentin
• Registered few escapes in early years despite having
“open system”
• Initially designed to hold 422