Prisons

If you’re a parent, you know how difficult it can be to get your kids to take medicine that tastes bad.  Parents can remedy this by requesting their children’s prescription medicine to be flavored at the 3,000 pharmacies in California that are able to do so. But an unintended consequence of a 2019 law may […]

California state Sen. Steve Glazer recently pointed out that his Democratic Party is prone to spending money on problems while ignoring whether it works.

A $100 million-a-year rehabilitation program for former California prisoners grew with little oversight from the state corrections agency. It's unclear how many parolees wind up back in prison.

California has spent more than $600 million over the past decade to house and rehabilitate parolees in the state’s single-largest reentry program for former prisoners. After all that money, state officials can’t say whether those services were effective in preventing future crime. That’s because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not tracked whether […]

Legislators, advocates, policy nerds and reporters (including my CalMatters colleague Sameea Kamal) waited all weekend, but the big announcement of a budget deal between Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders never came. Instead, with time running short, bills were put in print that reflect some of the negotiations, even without an overall agreement. Leaders in […]

Is the tide turning in favor of California’s renters? Some signs say yes. On Wednesday, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that a San Jose-based developer and property manager must refund more than $331,000 to 20 tenants in overpaid rent. It’s the first use of a 2019 law, explains CalMatters’ housing reporter Ben Christopher, but “it […]

As California reimagines its prison system, a reformer who spent years imprisoned in isolation questions why Gov. Gavin Newsom's agenda has largely sidestepped the issue of solitary confinement.

California is unwinding the prison-building boom of the 1980s and 1990s. The cuts are falling on small towns that banked on government jobs to anchor their communities.

With the Sierra Nevada snowpack reaching historic levels this year, state officials and residents sounded the alarm that the snowpack melt could trigger “ghost lakes” to expand and cause devastating floods. The rising water levels at Tulare Lake garnered particular attention, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to stop by the area in April to discuss emergency […]

Although he’s eyeing to one day become California’s governor, for now Rob Bonta is still the attorney general. Today, that means preserving reproductive rights, preventing gun violence, enforcing housing laws — and investigating fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians. CalMatters’ criminal justice reporter Nigel Duara is tracking these cases and recently talked to families who […]