Prisons

California spends more than $15 billion a year on its prison system. Now, with the number of people behind bars plummeting, the Newsom administration is moving to shut down more institutions.

For the second year in a row, there’s an effort underway to reform and significantly reduce the use of solitary confinement in California.

Reacting to Governor Kate Brown’s commutation of all death row sentences, the man who oversaw Oregon’s last two executions– wants to witness the dismantling of the death chamber he built.

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.

Nearly 200 people currently and formerly held in custody at the Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution had claimed cruel and unusual punishment over prison conditions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic; all claims were dismissed Tuesday

Oregon voters passed a measure that strips language from the state’s constitution allowing for slavery and involuntary servitude when used as a punishment for a crime.

A bill before Gov. Gavin Newsom would make the nation’s most wide-ranging changes to solitary confinement.

During a tense hearing in U.S. District Court, the U.S. Department of Justice said conditions at the Bureau of Prisons complex in Sheridan had improved. Oregon’s Federal Public Defender was skeptical.

The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Gov. Kate Brown was within her authority to grant clemency in 2020 and 2021 to around 1,000 people convicted of crimes.

“I could see the blood dripping off his head onto the ground,” one witness inside the prison told the federal public defender’s office.

A bill that passed the Assembly would create a “community campus” on prison grounds where inmates cook their own food and secure jobs before their release.