Prisons

From CalMatters’ state Capitol reporter Sameea Kamal:  California has taken a number of steps over the past decade to make voting easier: Mailing ballots to all registered voters, plus allowing early voting and same-day registration.  Yet, the electorate hasn’t shifted to match the state’s growing diversity: Frequent voters are far from representative of the majority […]

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to make prisons a friendlier place for inmate families. An updated strip-search policy has some worried that families will face intrusive encounters during their visits.

“A catastrophic hunger crisis.” That’s the dire warning from the California Association of Food Banks, after federal pandemic food aid ended earlier this spring.  But why does a state with so much food — California produces nearly half the country’s fruits and vegetables — and that spends so much on food aid have so many […]

Almost half of the jobs for doctors and psychiatrists in California prisons are unfilled. Now, their union says it’s ready to strike over pay even as the state faces a steep budget deficit.

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 […]