California Closes Prisons
As the state shutters prisons, Gov. Newsom wants to turn San Quentin into a model for rehabilitation. Attorney General Rob Bonta is trying to catch up on police shooting investigations.
By NIGEL DUARA, CalMatters
The long, loud fights over prison closures in 2022 spilled into 2023 as communities dependent on prison dollars continued to argue for their own survival. Despite protests, lobbying and lawsuits by the affected cities, California is following through on plans to close a total of four prisons.
With inmate populations still falling, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report in February that said the state could close five more by 2027.
Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged to transform San Quentin State Prison into a “center for innovation focused on education, rehabilitation and breaking cycles of crime” in an effort to reduce recidivism, but details remain scant on what that looks like.
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s unit that investigates police shootings of unarmed people had ruled on just four of its 44 cases by November 2023 as the families of people who were killed started to give up hope that the Justice Department would ever get them a resolution. The Justice Department conceded that it had not even logged every call from a police agency reporting the shooting of an unarmed person.
Many cases of police shooting and killing unarmed people remain unresolved
Following the passage of AB 1506 in 2020, the California Attorney General’s Office was tasked with investigating cases where a police officer shot and killed an unarmed person beginning in July 2021. After more than two years, most cases remain unresolved as new cases continue to open.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis organized the flights of two groups of migrants into California, prompting Newsom to refer to him as a “small, pathetic man” and insinuated that the state of California could pursue kidnapping charges. The tête-à-tête is expected to continue with a debate on Nov. 30.
Later in the summer, debate over a fairly minor bill log-jammed in an Assembly committee exploded into a three-day maelstrom in which a legislator reported getting death threats. The bill would have reclassified human trafficking of a minor for purposes of a commercial sex act as a “serious felony,” something that was proposed and rejected nine times before 2023. Newsom later signed the bill into law.
After consecutive years of record deaths in the San Diego jail system, a powerful legislator proposed putting “detention monitors” in each facility in the state. That plan was watered down significantly after opposition from law enforcement groups. The final version of the bill instead created a new position on the Board of State and Community Corrections that reviews in-custody deaths.
Major issues for 2024: In 2024, criminal justice reform advocates have pledged to bring back bills vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as the governor himself has moderated his enthusiasm for far-reaching changes to California’s criminal justice system. Prisons in Blythe and California City will wind down operations as Newsom looks to shutter even more correctional facilities and yards. Lobbyists for law enforcement will keep a close eye on the waning post-George Floyd legislative enthusiasm for major changes to policing after a year in which they quietly watered down or killed two bills that would have affected prison transfers to immigration facilities and a major overhaul of how counties oversee their sheriffs.
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