Criminal Justice

Incarceration shortens the life expectancy of inmates and correctional officers alike. Many California leaders view prison closures as a cost-saving measure, but the health benefits may be more impactful for the people who live or work inside.

Seven years after the Safe and Responsible Drivers Act gave undocumented residents a license to drive, the state is ready to expand its impact, but the law still has detractors.

Lorenzo Mays, who is intellectually disabled, spent years lost in a criminal justice system in California that too often fails people with developmental disabilities and mental illness.

For almost nine years, Lorenzo Mays disappeared inside Sacramento County jail, charged with a murder he insists he didn’t commit. During that time, Mays was never brought to trial. He wasn’t allowed to leave. Instead, he remained in a kind of legal limbo, with most of his years spent in solitary confinement. The reason? Judges […]

Sheriff ends daytime patrols in Tehama, reflecting officer shortage throughout California and national trend. Law enforcement blames low pay and tougher regulations; lawmakers and civil rights advocates disagree.

Many California jails failed to track crucial pandemic data, making it difficult to gauge the effectiveness of COVID policies. There are also signs that sheriff's offices, which manage local jails, did not comply with public health mandates.

The state’s prisons are no longer a world rehabilitation model, but Stockholm Prize winner Francis Cullen says the system could return to greatness.

Newly acquired state data shows that the Corrections Department transferred patients with serious mental illnesses an average of five times over a six-year period, underscoring a CalMatters’ investigation this year that revealed the practice and raised questions about the harm it could cause.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota at police hands, California stepped up with a plan: Put the state in charge of investigating police shootings of unarmed people. CalMatters is tracking these cases and, so far, the Justice Department is struggling to keep up.

California’s new program to police the police has produced few results so far.  That’s according to a new project from CalMatters justice reporter Nigel Duara, who is today launching the state’s most comprehensive public tracker of police shootings of unarmed civilians under investigation by the California Department of Justice. The department has opened 25 such […]