Prisons in California
The California state prison system is a system of prisons, fire camps, contract beds, reentry programs, and other special programs administered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Division of Adult Institutions to incarcerate approximately 117,000 people as of April 2020.
California's first state prison was the Waban, a 268-ton wooden ship anchored in San Francisco Bay.
CDCR additionally staffs California City Correctional Facility, which was leased from CoreCivic starting in 2013 as part of measures to reduce state prison overcrowding.
In 1995, the court ruled in federal class action civil rights lawsuit Plata v. Brown that CDCR failed to provide a constitutional level of medical care to its prisoners and ordered the state's prison medical care system be put into receivership.
In 2011, California passed Public Safety Realignment, which altered sentencing and supervision guidelines to shift responsibility for some prisoners to counties.
[11] Other legislative changes to reduce prison overcrowding include 2014 California Proposition 47, which changed some felonies to misdemeanors, and 2016 California Proposition 57, which allowed the parole board to release people convicted of "non-violent" crimes once they served the full sentence for their primary offense.
CDCR funding is organized into the following programs:[13] The costs to run prisons are substantially subsidized by the use of incarcerated labor.
Incarcerated workers do meal preparation, laundry, janitorial services, building maintenance, and other activities necessary for the day-to-day operations of a prison.
In 2019, the California state legislature passed SB 132, "The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act", which will require that CDCR "house the person in a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference" starting in 2021.
[17] As of the most recent CDCR "Offender Data Points" report,[18] the California state prison population breaks down by ethnicity as follows: As of the most recent CDCR "Offender Data Points" report,[19] the California state prison population breaks down by sentence type as follows: Per the report, "Others" includes "those with commitment information not yet entered, those sentenced to prison for diagnostic evaluation, and boarders from other jurisdictions".
Since 2009, the state has been under court order to reduce prison overcrowding to no higher than 137.5% of total design capacity.
"The state spends millions of dollars each year in class-action litigation costs alone", often related to overcrowding or inadequate health care.
In 2012, in response to multiple long-standing class-action lawsuits, as well as budget concerns and continuing overcrowding after Public Safety Realignment, CDCR published "The Future of California Corrections: A Blueprint to Save Billions of Dollars, End Federal Court Oversight, and Improve the Prison System", which articulated a strategy to improve rehabilitative programming, health care, housing, and parole operations.
