Existing law provides the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with jurisdiction over the state prison, as specified. Existing law states that it is unlawful to use any cruel, corporal, or unusual punishment or to inflict any treatment or allow any lack of care that would injure or impair the health of a prisoner, inmate, or person confined. This bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require the Department of Justice, in collaboration with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Board of State and Community Corrections, to conduct a one-time comprehensive study on the use of solitary confinement in all detention facilities in California. The bill would require the study to include specified data about each instance of solitary confinement during the first 9 months of the year of 2026, including, among other data, the time and date solitary confinement began and ended, the facility in which it occurred, and the stated basis for the solitary confinement. The bill would require detention facilities to report the required data to the department. By increasing duties on local detention facilities, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the Department of Justice to provide monthly data to the Legislature, and a final report to the Legislature and the Governor, by November 1, 2026, as specified. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
(1) Existing law establishes the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (department) and sets forth its powers and duties regarding the administration of correctional facilities and the care and custody of inmates. Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined. This bill would require the department, by July 1, 2027, to establish policies and procedures that include circumstances under which a body-worn camera may be deactivated and would require the department to ensure that those policies and procedures reflect a minimum amount of time per shift that a body-worn camera be activated, and that the camera is activated when interacting with incarcerated persons. The bill would require the department to develop audit protocols to ensure compliance. The bill would require the department's policies and procedures to authorize deactivation of a body-worn camera during specified confidential interactions and would require staff to inform the subject the reason for the deactivation and to document the time of the deactivation, the reason for the deactivation, and the time of reactivation. This bill would require the department to adopt, and update regularly, a Prison Sexual Violence Elimination policy that would outline specified principles, including, among others, that the department maintains zero tolerance for sexual violence, staff sexual misconduct, and sexual harassment in its institutions, community correctional facilities, and conservation camps, and for all offenders under its jurisdiction. (2) Under existing law, a person sentenced to imprisonment in a state prison for a felony offense, as specified, may, during that period of confinement, be deprived only of those rights as is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Existing law enumerates certain civil rights of these prisoners. This bill would, by January 1, 2028, require the department to develop and implement protocols for when an incarcerated person is subject to a nonroutine search or scan, including, among other things, obtaining approval from a supervising officer of rank sergeant or above before the search or scan, documenting specified information about the search or scan, and providing the incarcerated person with a written receipt or other documentation with this information. The bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to establish a pilot program at 3 institutions to evaluate the effectiveness of replacing unclothed body searches with scanning technology, as specified. (3) Existing law requires members of the department's Office of Internal Affairs to possess certification from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training for investigators, except as specified. Existing law requires the department to conduct a complete and thorough background check prior to training a peace officer who is selected to conduct internal affairs investigations and requires each person to satisfactorily pass the background check. Existing law states that any person who has been the subject of a sustained, serious disciplinary action, as specified, shall not pass the background check. This bill would require an investigator to disclose an actual or potential conflict of interest they may have in an investigation in which they are participating. The bill would require the department to take appropriate action to remedy that conflict. The bill would require an investigator to recuse themselves from participating in an investigation or a decision related to an investigation if they have a conflict of interest involving a staff member with whom they have a personal relationship, as defined. (4) Existing law authorizes the secretary of the department to prescribe and amend rules and regulations for the administration of prisons. Under existing law, the State Civil Service Act, certain acts, including convictions of certain crimes, are cause for discipline of a state employee or of a person whose name appears on an employment list. This bill would prohibit the department from appointing a person to a position that may involve any contact with incarcerated persons, or engaging a contractor for services that may involve contact with incarcerated persons, if the department obtains information that substantiated allegations of sexual abuse in the course of their employment have been reported against them, as specified. The bill would prohibit the department from appointing any person to a position that may involve contact with incarcerated persons, or engaging a contractor for services that may involve contact with incarcerated persons, if the department learns that the person or contractor has been convicted of certain offenses, including felony domestic battery and specified sex offenses, among others. The bill would also prohibit the department from appointing any person to a position that may involve contact with incarcerated persons, or engaging a contractor for any services, if it obtains information that the person or contractor has been civilly or administratively adjudicated to have engaged in that conduct. The bill would require the department to make best efforts to contact all prior institutional employers for information on substantiated allegations of sexual abuse, among other things. The bill would require the department to conduct criminal background checks every 5 years of existing employees or implement a system to otherwise capture that information. (5) Existing law makes it a misdemeanor for an employee or officer of a public entity health facility, or an employee, officer, or agent of a private person or entity that provides a health facility or staff for a health facility under contract with a public entity, to engage in sexual activity with a consenting adult who is confined in a health facility. Existing law additionally makes it a misdemeanor for specified individuals, including an employee or officer of a public entity detention facility or an employee with a department, board, or authority under the department, to engage in sexual activity with a consenting adult who is confined in a detention facility or who is an inmate, ward, or parolee, as specified. Existing law makes it a felony for any subsequent violations for a person who was previously convicted of these violations. Existing law requires a person convicted of a felony violation of the above-described provisions who is employed by a department, board, or authority within the department to be terminated, as specified, and prohibits that person from being eligible to be hired or reinstated by the department. Existing law requires administrators to report criminal sexual abuse by staff to law enforcement authorities. This bill would instead require that a person convicted of any violation of these provisions be terminated and prohibited from being reinstated by the department. The bill would also require that a person convicted of any violation of these provisions who is employed by a public entity health facility be terminated and made ineligible to be hired or reinstated by a public entity health facility. This bill would require administrators to report any known or suspected sexual abuse by staff to a local law enforcement agency. (6) Existing law establishes the Office of the Inspector General that is responsible for, among other things, contemporaneous public oversight of internal affairs investigations and staff grievance inquiries conducted by the department's Office of Internal Affairs. Existing law requires the Office of the Inspector General to have investigatory authority over all staff misconduct cases that involve sexual misconduct with an incarcerated person, as specified. This bill would authorize an incarcerated person to file an anonymous grievance relating to an allegation of sexual misconduct directly to the Office of the Inspector General, and would authorize the Inspector General to review any grievance filed from an incarcerated person, whether or not that grievance had been previously filed with the institution or hiring authority where the grievance occurred. (7) Existing regulations establish a grievance procedure for individuals in the custody of, or under the supervision of, the department. Under those regulations, a claimant is required to submit a grievance no later than 60 calendar days after discovering an adverse policy, decision, action, condition, or omission by the department. This bill would extend that time period to 120 calendar days.
(1) Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish and implement a community treatment program, under which a woman sentenced to state prison who has one or more children under 6 years of age is eligible for release with the woman's children to a public or private facility in the community suitable to their needs. Existing law authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to enter into contracts with public or private agencies to provide housing, sustenance, supervision, and services, subject to the approval of the Director of General Services. This bill would remove the requirement that the contracts be approved by the Director of General Services. The bill would authorize the department to enter into long-term contracts, not to exceed 10 years, for the transfer of prisoners to, or placement of prisoners in, facilities under contract pursuant to these provisions. The bill would require that the secretary advertise potential contracts under these provisions and would require that priority be given to certain community treatment programs, as specified. (2) Under existing law, the primary responsibilities of the State Public Defender are to represent those persons who are entitled to representation at public expense in specified proceedings, to provide assistance and training to specified attorneys, and to engage in related efforts for the purpose of improving the quality of indigent defense. This bill would exempt contracts entered into or amended by the State Public Defender to implement those duties from specified contract register requirements, specified small business procurement, disabled veteran business, and public contracting provisions, and from the review or approval of any division of the Department of General Services. (3) Existing law creates within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation the Prison Industry Authority and Prison Industry Board. Existing law continues in existence within the department the Prison Industry Authority and the Prison Industry Authority Board, among other entities. This bill would revise these provisions to rename the Prison Industry Authority as the California Correctional Training and Rehabilitation Authority, and to rename the Prison Industry Board as the California Correctional Training and Rehabilitation Board. The bill would make these provisions operative only if SB 857 of the 2025–26 Regular Session is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2026. (4) Existing law, the California Public Records Act, generally requires public records to be open for inspection by the public. Existing law provides numerous exceptions to this requirement. Under existing law, the personnel records of peace officers and custodial officers are confidential and not subject to public inspection. Existing law provides certain exemptions to this confidentiality, including the reports, investigations, and findings of certain incidents involving the use of force by a peace officer. Existing law makes records relating to an investigation conducted by a local detention facility into a death incident, as defined, available to public inspection, as specified. Existing law establishes the Board of State and Community Corrections, with the mission of, among other things, promoting legal and safe conditions for youth, inmates, and staff in local detention facilities. Existing law creates the position of Director of In-Custody Death Review within the board. This bill would authorize the director to have access to, and authority to, examine and reproduce records of any local detention facility, as specified. By increasing duties on local governments, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (5) Existing law, the California Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act of 2009, authorizes each county to establish a Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, and provides annual payments to the counties for purposes relating to improving local probation supervision practices and capacities. Existing law continuously appropriates the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund for these incentive payments. Existing law, as part of those annual payments, requires the Director of Finance, in consultation with certain entities, to annually calculate a statewide performance incentive payment and a county performance incentive payment for each eligible county. Existing law requires the director to calculate those payments based on, among other things, the cost to the state to incarcerate in a contract facility and supervise on parole an offender who fails local supervision and is sent to prison. This bill would instead make that calculation based on the per capita cost to the state to incarcerate in a state prison and supervise on parole an offender who fails local supervision and is sent to prison, calculated pursuant to specified formulas. Existing law also requires that calculation to be based on an estimate of the number of felons on probation, mandatory supervision, and postrelease community supervision each county successfully prevented from being incarcerated in state prison, determined based on the reduction in the county's probation and mandatory supervision failure rate as calculated annually for that year and the county's failure rate from the previous year. This bill would instead calculate that estimate based on the actual number of individuals under one of those forms of supervision admitted to state prison from each county in the previous calendar year subtracted from each county's baseline admission to prison rate for those forms of supervision, as specified, multiplied by the average daily population of those forms of supervision for each county in the previous calendar year. Existing law additionally requires the Director of Finance to calculate a statewide performance incentive payment for each county using a formula based on the county's return to prison rate and the county's highest year of funding that the county received from the California Community Incentive Grant Program from the 2011–12 fiscal year to the 2014–15 fiscal year, inclusive, as specified. This bill would repeal those provisions. The bill would additionally, beginning with the 2025–26 fiscal year, appropriate $103,668,010 to the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund from the General Fund, to be distributed to counties, as specified. The bill would decrease a county's appropriation pursuant to these provisions by a factor of 10% for each percentage point the county return to prison rate exceeds its baseline return to prison rate, as specified. Existing law additionally requires the Director of Finance to calculate a statewide performance incentive payment based on the number of felons on probation, mandatory supervision, or postrelease community supervision that were successfully prevented from being incarcerated in the state prison, multiplied by 35% of the state's costs to incarcerate a prison felony offender in a contract facility, as specified. This bill would instead multiply that number by 25% of the average of the state's per capita cost to incarcerate a prison felony offender in a state prison and supervise an individual on parole. By changing the distribution of continuously appropriated funds and making a new appropriation, this bill would make an appropriation. (6) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above. (7) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.
Under existing law, the Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of sentencing is public safety achieved through punishment, rehabilitation, and restorative justice, and that programs should be available for incarcerated persons, including educational, rehabilitative, and restorative justice programs that are designed to promote behavioral change and to prepare all incarcerated persons for successful reentry into the community. Existing law directs the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to maintain a mission statement consistent with these principles. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations relating to corrections and rehabilitation, including, among others, that the Legislature recognizes that life in prison can never be the same as life in a free society, and that active steps should be taken to make conditions in prison as close to normal life as possible, aside from loss of liberty, to ensure that this normalization does not lead to inhumane prison conditions. The bill would direct the department to maintain a mission statement consistent with the principles of normalization and dynamic security, and would require the department to facilitate access for community-based programs. Existing law provides that the primary objective of adult incarceration is to facilitate the successful reintegration of the individuals in the department's care back to their communities equipped with the tools to be drug-free, healthy, and employable members of society by providing education, treatment, and rehabilitative and restorative justice programs in a safe and humane environment. This bill would include that the primary objective of adult incarceration is to promote personal growth for all residents in the department's care. The bill would also provide that the department should develop training for all correctional staff on the principles of normalization and dynamic security in order to meaningfully effectuate these principles.
