Publications

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Mishandled Allegations That a High-Ranking Official Engaged in Misconduct. This public version of a confidential report we provided to the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (department) discusses the department’s response to a complaint it received in October 2018, which alleged one of its high-ranking officials engaged in misconduct and made decisions that resulted in a waste of State resources. We found that the lack of a policy setting forth a formal procedure by which the department reviews complaints against officials in this position left departmental officials without clear direction as to how to handle the complaint. When forced to create a special process to review a serious complaint against one of its highest-ranking officials, the department failed to ensure the complaint received the fair and thorough assessment departmental policy requires of complaints concerning all other departmental staff.

Fact sheet containing the most significant findings contained within Part 1 and Part 2 of our COVID-19 Review Series

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Distributed and Mandated the Use of Personal Protective Equipment and Cloth Face Coverings; However, Its Lax Enforcement Led to Inadequate Adherence to Basic Safety Protocols. In our second report examining the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, we reviewed the department’s distribution of PPE to its staff and incarcerated persons as well as staff’s adherence to policies concerning cloth face coverings and physical distancing. We found that the department was generally able to procure and maintain supplies of PPE for its staff and face coverings for staff and incarcerated persons. However, although the department distributed cloth face coverings to its staff and incarcerated population, issued memoranda requiring their use, and also implemented physical distancing requirements, we observed that staff and incarcerated persons frequently failed to adhere to those basic safety protocols and that supervisors and managers did not sufficiently enforce these requirements. The report also raises concerns with the department’s decision to loosen its face covering requirements in June 2020 even though it was reporting increasing cases of COVID-19 among both its staff and incarcerated persons at that time.

This report contains our assessment of the medical care provided to incarcerated persons at the California Correctional Center in Susanville between March 2019 and September 2019. We rated the overall quality of health care provided at CCC during this time period as Adequate.

This report contains our assessment of the medical care provided to incarcerated persons at California State Prison, Solano between February 2019 and July 2019. We rated the overall quality of health care provided at CSP-Solano during this time period as Adequate.

We performed a special review into the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (the department) efforts to address the difficult and evolving issues transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals face while in custody. In this report, we shed light on these individuals’ experiences, convey the concerns and advocacy of external stakeholders, and outline the department’s progress in addressing the varied and complex issues incarcerated transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals encounter. We also make recommendations to the department to improve conditions of confinement for this incarcerated population.

This report contains our assessment of the medical care provided to incarcerated persons at Valley State Prison between September 2018 and April 2019. We rated the overall quality of health care provided at VSP during this time period as Adequate.

This report contains our assessment of the medical care provided at Wasco State Prison between December 2018 and May 2019. We rated the overall quality of health care provided at WSP during this time period as Adequate.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (the department) refused to sustain dishonesty charges against two officers who used unnecessary force against a handcuffed incarcerated person and lied about the need to use force in official reports and interviews. The incarcerated person was found guilty of a serious rules violation based on the officers’ reports that he began resisting their efforts to escort him back to his cell, which they claimed required them to take him to the ground and punch him in the head 10 to 12 times…

In the first of a series of reports examining the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, we reviewed the department’s efforts to screen prison staff and visitors for signs and symptoms of COVID-19. We found the department’s screening directives to be vague, which appears to have caused inconsistent implementation among the prisons and likely contributed to some staff and visitors entering prisons without having been screened. We also found that the thermometers prison staff used to check the temperatures of all those entering the prisons did not always work properly and that staff were not trained on the proper use and maintenance of the screening devices. The report also raises concerns with the department’s refusal to provide us with access to all of its records, which limited the scope of our review.