Publications

During January 2024, the OIG’s Centralized Screening Monitoring Team randomly selected 645 grievances for monitoring. This document presents 10 notable cases monitored and closed by the OIG during January 2024.

As part of our statute, the Office of the Inspector General (the OIG) maintains an Intake Processing Unit, which receives complaints from the incarcerated population and the public, in communication with our office. Intake staff respond to these communications, which can exceed 650 complaints each month. Complaints arrive to us through regular mail, by phone calls (toll-free hotline), and as web inquiries received via our website. This file includes 10 complaints for which our Intake staff conducted a review or inquiry and have closed as of February 2024. These cases highlight a variety of matters in which the actions of OIG staff had an impact on the complainant and may result in further OIG monitoring of inquiries or investigations conducted by departmental staff.

This annual report summarizes the work the Office of the Inspector General completed during 2023, including the 16 public reports we issued. The report also details the work the OIG performed that was not highlighted in other reports issued during the year.

This report evaluates the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s progress meeting the components of its 2012 Blueprint plan that it had not previously met, focusing on a review of standardized staffing of rehabilitative programs. This 13th report presents data collected between November and December 2023, with the exception of departmental population figures, which extend through June 30, 2023.

During the January 2024 review period, the OIG’s Local Inquiry Team retrospectively reviewed two random local inquiry cases that were closed by the department in June 2023 and September 2023, respectively, in order to assess the department’s performance on local inquiry cases that our office did not contemporaneously monitor.

From January 1, 2024, through January 31, 2024, the OIG’s Local Inquiry Team monitored and closed four cases. This document presents all monitored and closed cases during this period.

During December 2023, the OIG’s Centralized Screening Monitoring Team randomly selected 556 grievances for monitoring. This document presents 12 notable cases monitored and closed by the OIG during December 2023.

From December 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023, the OIG’s Local Inquiry Team monitored and closed five cases. This document presents all monitored and closed cases during this period.

During the December 2023 review period, the OIG’s Local Inquiry Team retrospectively reviewed 18 random local inquiry cases that were closed by the department from June through September 2023, in order to assess the department’s performance on local inquiry cases that our office did not contemporaneously monitor.

In this special review, we shed light on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s decision to address a backlog of incarcerated persons’ allegations of staff misconduct by converting them into routine grievances and sending them to local prison staff for handling instead of performing an investigation or inquiry. The decision violated both the department’s regulations and its policy for screening and investigating grievances received from incarcerated people who alleged staff misconduct. Our review found that the department’s decision to redirect these grievances to its prisons circumvented control measures that were put in place to prevent prison authorities from making potentially biased decisions when responding to allegations of staff misconduct.