As California deals with a projected $28 billion budget shortfall over the next 18 months, it remains to be seen if the requisite two-thirds of the state legislature has the political courage to make cuts to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) proposed $11 billion annual operating budget.
Democrats ...
California DOC Settles Sadistic, Hate-Motivated, Three-Year Starvation Death Of Sikh Prisoner For $1 Million
by Marvin Mentor
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) settled a lawsuit brought by the survivors of a Sikh prisoner who died of starvation at Corcoran State Prison’s Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (SATF). The ...
A prisoner housed at a “restitution center” who spent two years working in the community sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for failure to reimburse her work-related expenses per state statute, or to apply $6,300 that had otherwise been properly deducted from her wages to her restitution ...
A November 2007 national study by the PEW Public Safety Performance Project concluded that the policy of returning parolees and probationers to custody for other than new offenses has the perverse effect of frustrating their reentry into society and their emancipation from the criminal justice system. This result is not ...
John Hagar, the Special Master assigned by the U.S. District Court (N.D. Cal.) to monitor the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) staff investigations and disciplinary process has opined, in an October 2007 Final Report to the court, that monitoring should be continued because CDCR could not be relied ...
On November 8, 2007, a federal jury awarded a California state prisoner $39,011 for injuries he suffered due to being placed in retaliatory extended lockdowns that prison officials initiated following assaults on staff by other prisoners. The lawsuit alleged cruel and unusual punishment resulting from excessive confinement with no outdoor ...
California Lifer's Governor-Parole-Reversal Tossed by State Court
by Marvin Mentor
A decision by Governor Schwarzenegger to reverse the Board of Parole Hearing's (BPH) grant of parole to an infirm, 82-year-old lifer was itself reversed by the California Court of Appeal. The Second Appellate District found that there was not "some ...
California Prison Guards Lose Unlimited "Time Bank" For On-The Job Union Business
by Marvin Mentor
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) lost its bid to undo a cap on its contract provision permitting rank-and-file members to donate unused leave (minimum of two-hour increments) to fellow prison guards to cover ...
In a March 2007 Letter Report to California's Governor and Legislature, State Auditor Elaine Howell reported that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had failed to make meaningful progress in devising accurate prisoner population projections for California. Such projections are of paramount importance because they seriously impact CDCR's ...
More details have surfaced in a conflict-of-interest scandal involving two California gubernatorial appointees involved in a $26 million no-bid contract awarded by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for medical scheduling services. PLN previously reported that the chief of CDCR's Division of Health Care Services, Dr. Peter Farber-Szekrenyi, ...
