Prisoners: trauma-focused programming.

Existing law authorizes the Board of Parole Hearings to establish and enforce rules and regulations under which inmates committed to state prisons may be allowed to go upon parole outside the prison buildings and enclosures when eligible for parole. Existing law requires the board to meet with each inmate before the inmate's minimum eligible parole date, as specified, for the purposes of reviewing and documenting the inmate's activities and conduct pertinent to parole eligibility. Existing law charges the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with administering the state prisons. This bill would require the department to implement a 4-year pilot program at 4 state prisons to offer trauma-focused programming, which includes, among other things, programs that provide tools for coping and dealing with trauma and individual therapy, to qualified incarcerated persons during the 5 years preceding his or her parole date. The bill would require the department, by July 1, 2018, to convene a stakeholder group, as specified, and develop trauma-focused programming for use in the pilot program. The bill would authorize the department to contract with a nonprofit organization to provide trauma-focused programming if a state prison participating in the pilot program does not have a clinical social worker, psychologist, or other qualified professional to provide trauma-focused programming. The bill would authorize the board to consider a qualified incarcerated person's participation in and completion of trauma-focused programming as a performance milestone for purposes of credit reductions from the incarcerated person's term of confinement. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2023.