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Every week, she and cohost Scott Shafer sit down with political insiders on \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Political Breakdown\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where they offer a peek into lives and personalities of those driving politics in California and beyond. \u003c/span>\r\n\r\n\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Previously, she worked for nine years at the San Francisco Chronicle covering San Francisco City Hall and state politics; and at the San Francisco Examiner and Los Angeles Time,. She has won awards for her work investigating the 2017 wildfires and her ongoing coverage of criminal justice issues in California. She lives in San Francisco with her two sons and husband.\u003c/span>","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a261a0d3696fc066871ef96b85b5e7d2?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":"@mlagos","facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"news","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"science","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"forum","roles":["author"]}],"headData":{"title":"Marisa Lagos | KQED","description":"KQED Contributor","ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a261a0d3696fc066871ef96b85b5e7d2?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a261a0d3696fc066871ef96b85b5e7d2?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/mlagos"},"ecruzguevarra":{"type":"authors","id":"8654","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"8654","found":true},"name":"Ericka Cruz Guevarra","firstName":"Ericka","lastName":"Cruz Guevarra","slug":"ecruzguevarra","email":"ecruzguevarra@kqed.org","display_author_email":true,"staff_mastheads":["news"],"title":"Producer, The Bay Podcast","bio":"Ericka Cruz Guevarra is host of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">\u003cem>The Bay\u003c/em>\u003c/a> podcast at KQED. Before host, she was the show’s producer. Her work in that capacity includes a three-part reported series on policing in Vallejo, which won a 2020 excellence in journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Ericka has worked as a breaking news reporter at Oregon Public Broadcasting, helped produce the Code Switch podcast, and was KQED’s inaugural Raul Ramirez Diversity Fund intern. She’s also an alumna of NPR’s Next Generation Radio program. Send her an email if you have strong feelings about whether Fairfield and Suisun City are the Bay.","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/25e5ab8d3d53fad2dcc7bb2b5c506b1a?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":"NotoriousECG","facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"arts","roles":["subscriber"]},{"site":"news","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"futureofyou","roles":["subscriber"]},{"site":"stateofhealth","roles":["subscriber"]},{"site":"science","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"forum","roles":["subscriber"]}],"headData":{"title":"Ericka Cruz Guevarra | KQED","description":"Producer, The Bay Podcast","ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/25e5ab8d3d53fad2dcc7bb2b5c506b1a?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/25e5ab8d3d53fad2dcc7bb2b5c506b1a?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/ecruzguevarra"},"fjhabvala":{"type":"authors","id":"8659","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"8659","found":true},"name":"Farida Jhabvala Romero","firstName":"Farida","lastName":"Jhabvala Romero","slug":"fjhabvala","email":"fjhabvala@kqed.org","display_author_email":true,"staff_mastheads":["news"],"title":"KQED Contributor","bio":"\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farida Jhabvala Romero is a Labor Correspondent for KQED. She previously covered immigration. Farida was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ccnma.org/2022-most-influential-latina-journalists\">named\u003c/a> one of the 10 Most Influential Latina Journalists in California in 2022 by the California Chicano News Media Association. Her work has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists (Northern California), as well as a national and regional Edward M. Murrow Award for the collaborative reporting projects “Dangerous Air” and “Graying California.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before joining KQED, Farida worked as a producer at Radio Bilingüe, a national public radio network. Farida earned her master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University.\u003c/span>","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c3ab27c5554b67b478f80971e515aa02?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":"FaridaJhabvala","facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/faridajhabvala/","sites":[{"site":"news","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"stateofhealth","roles":["author"]}],"headData":{"title":"Farida Jhabvala Romero | KQED","description":"KQED Contributor","ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c3ab27c5554b67b478f80971e515aa02?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c3ab27c5554b67b478f80971e515aa02?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/fjhabvala"},"amontecillo":{"type":"authors","id":"11649","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"11649","found":true},"name":"Alan Montecillo","firstName":"Alan","lastName":"Montecillo","slug":"amontecillo","email":"amontecillo@kqed.org","display_author_email":false,"staff_mastheads":["news"],"title":"KQED Contributor","bio":"Alan Montecillo is editor of \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a>, \u003c/em>a local news and storytelling podcast from KQED. He's worked as a senior talk show producer for WILL in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and was the founding producer and editor of \u003cem>Racist Sandwich\u003c/em>, a podcast about food, race, class, and gender. He is a Filipino-American from Hong Kong and a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon.","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d5e4e7a76481969ccba76f4e2b5ccabc?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":"alanmontecillo","facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"","roles":["editor"]},{"site":"news","roles":["editor"]}],"headData":{"title":"Alan Montecillo | KQED","description":"KQED Contributor","ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d5e4e7a76481969ccba76f4e2b5ccabc?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d5e4e7a76481969ccba76f4e2b5ccabc?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/amontecillo"},"mesquinca":{"type":"authors","id":"11802","meta":{"index":"authors_1591205172","id":"11802","found":true},"name":"Maria Esquinca","firstName":"Maria","lastName":"Esquinca","slug":"mesquinca","email":"mesquinca@kqed.org","display_author_email":false,"staff_mastheads":[],"title":"Producer, The Bay","bio":"María Esquinca is a producer of The Bay. Before that, she was a New York Women’s Foundation IGNITE Fellow at Latino USA. She worked at Radio Bilingue where she covered the San Joaquin Valley. Maria has interned at WLRN, News 21, The New York Times Student Journalism Institute and at Crain’s Detroit Business as a Dow Jones News Fund Business Reporting Intern. She is an MFA graduate from the University of Miami. In 2017, she graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication with a Master of Mass Communication. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and grew up in El Paso, Texas.","avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/77cedba18aae91da775038ba06dcd8d0?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twitter":"@m_esquinca","facebook":null,"instagram":null,"linkedin":null,"sites":[{"site":"news","roles":["editor"]}],"headData":{"title":"Maria Esquinca | KQED","description":"Producer, The Bay","ogImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/77cedba18aae91da775038ba06dcd8d0?s=600&d=blank&r=g","twImgSrc":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/77cedba18aae91da775038ba06dcd8d0?s=600&d=blank&r=g"},"isLoading":false,"link":"/author/mesquinca"}},"breakingNewsReducer":{},"campaignFinanceReducer":{},"firebase":{"requesting":{},"requested":{},"timestamps":{},"data":{},"ordered":{},"auth":{"isLoaded":false,"isEmpty":true},"authError":null,"profile":{"isLoaded":false,"isEmpty":true},"listeners":{"byId":{},"allIds":[]},"isInitializing":false,"errors":[]},"navBarReducer":{"navBarId":"news","fullView":true,"showPlayer":false},"navMenuReducer":{"menus":[{"key":"menu1","items":[{"name":"News","link":"/","type":"title"},{"name":"Politics","link":"/politics"},{"name":"Science","link":"/science"},{"name":"Education","link":"/educationnews"},{"name":"Housing","link":"/housing"},{"name":"Immigration","link":"/immigration"},{"name":"Criminal Justice","link":"/criminaljustice"},{"name":"Silicon Valley","link":"/siliconvalley"},{"name":"Forum","link":"/forum"},{"name":"The California Report","link":"/californiareport"}]},{"key":"menu2","items":[{"name":"Arts & Culture","link":"/arts","type":"title"},{"name":"Critics’ Picks","link":"/thedolist"},{"name":"Cultural Commentary","link":"/artscommentary"},{"name":"Food & Drink","link":"/food"},{"name":"Bay Area Hip-Hop","link":"/bayareahiphop"},{"name":"Rebel Girls","link":"/rebelgirls"},{"name":"Arts Video","link":"/artsvideos"}]},{"key":"menu3","items":[{"name":"Podcasts","link":"/podcasts","type":"title"},{"name":"Bay Curious","link":"/podcasts/baycurious"},{"name":"Rightnowish","link":"/podcasts/rightnowish"},{"name":"The Bay","link":"/podcasts/thebay"},{"name":"On Our Watch","link":"/podcasts/onourwatch"},{"name":"Mindshift","link":"/podcasts/mindshift"},{"name":"Consider This","link":"/podcasts/considerthis"},{"name":"Political Breakdown","link":"/podcasts/politicalbreakdown"}]},{"key":"menu4","items":[{"name":"Live Radio","link":"/radio","type":"title"},{"name":"TV","link":"/tv","type":"title"},{"name":"Events","link":"/events","type":"title"},{"name":"For Educators","link":"/education","type":"title"},{"name":"Support KQED","link":"/support","type":"title"},{"name":"About","link":"/about","type":"title"},{"name":"Help Center","link":"https://kqed-helpcenter.kqed.org/s","type":"title"}]}]},"pagesReducer":{},"postsReducer":{"stream_live":{"type":"live","id":"stream_live","audioUrl":"https://streams.kqed.org/kqedradio","title":"Live Stream","excerpt":"Live Stream information currently unavailable.","link":"/radio","featImg":"","label":{"name":"KQED Live","link":"/"}},"stream_kqedNewscast":{"type":"posts","id":"stream_kqedNewscast","audioUrl":"https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/newscast.mp3?_=1","title":"KQED Newscast","featImg":"","label":{"name":"88.5 FM","link":"/"}},"news_11973393":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11973393","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11973393","score":null,"sort":[1706047221000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-incarceration-expenses-double-top-private-university-tuition","title":"California Incarceration Expenses Double Top Private University Tuition","publishDate":1706047221,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Incarceration Expenses Double Top Private University Tuition | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>The cost of imprisoning one person in California has increased by more than 90% in the past decade, reaching a record-breaking $132,860 annually, according to state finance documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s nearly twice as expensive as the annual undergraduate tuition — $66,640 — at the University of Southern California, the most costly private university in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s spending per inmate jumped steeply during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it continued to increase despite recent cost-cutting moves, including Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent move to close three state prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s propelled by lucrative employee compensation deals and costly mandates to improve health care behind bars, according to fiscal analyses by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/01/newsom-budget-california/\">Newsom’s most recent budget proposal\u003c/a> includes $18.1 billion for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, up from $15.7 billion when he took office in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some lawmakers and advocates have argued California should focus on rehabilitation and shut down additional prisons to save money in the face of what the governor’s office projects to be a $38 billion deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office suggested the state could close as many as \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2023/02/how-many-prisons-does-california-need/\">five more state prisons\u003c/a> because of California’s declining inmate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would stand to save upwards of $1 billion in operating costs and even more money on unfunded capital improvement projects, the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s three closures and the cancellation of a contract for a fourth privately run prison save the state an estimated $667 million over the next year, according to the Department of Finance, but the savings are not enough to offset increased operational and employee costs. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"H.D. Palmer, spokesperson, Department of Finance\"]‘We remain committed to meeting the needs of staff and the incarcerated population while right-sizing California’s prison system as the prison population declines over time.’[/pullquote]The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents 26,000 prison guards, last summer \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2023/08/ccpoa-contract-2023-california-prisons/\">negotiated a contract\u003c/a> with successive 3% raises and other perks that will cost the state roughly $1 billion over the next three years. The \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2023/09/california-union-contract-doctor-bonuses/\">prison doctors’ union\u003c/a>, which represents 1,700 employees, also negotiated a two-year contract with a combined 5.5% general salary increase and a range of other incentives. The Newsom administration estimates it will cost $234 million over three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom, at least for now, is not recommending any additional prison closures. Instead, his state budget proposal recommends keeping prisons open with fewer inmates in them to provide more space for rehabilitative programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The administration is not currently proposing any additional prison closures,” H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a statement. “We remain committed to meeting the needs of staff and the incarcerated population while right-sizing California’s prison system as the prison population declines over time and to addressing space needs as the state transforms the carceral system to one more focused on rehabilitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11973408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11973408\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut.jpg\" alt='A sign at Folsom Prison reads, \"All Prisoners Must Exit Vehicle Until Cleared By Officer.\"' width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An entrance to California State Prison, known as New Folsom Prison, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Opponents of mass incarceration say the administration’s argument for keeping empty prison beds open doesn’t align with how the money is spent. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Brian Kaneda, deputy director, Californians United for a Responsible Budget\"]‘This is a cash grab by [the corrections department].’[/pullquote]“This is a cash grab by [the corrections department],” said Brian Kaneda, deputy director of the prison abolitionist group Californians United for a Responsible Budget. Newsom has touted \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/01/san-quentin-correctional-officer/\">transforming San Quentin State Prison\u003c/a> into a rehabilitation center, but advocates like Kaneda and state advisory groups say the plan is vague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rehabilitation costs, which currently include prisoner education and activities, only make up a fraction of total correctional spending — roughly 3% — over the past decade, according to state budget documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a written statement, the corrections department said its spending plan “judiciously uses taxpayer dollars in a manner that balances the need for cost-efficiency while maximizing public safety, the wellbeing of incarcerated people and successful rehabilitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Costs in California prisons\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The actual cost to house a prisoner is much closer to $15,000, said Caitlin O’Neil, a criminal justice analyst for the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Direct costs include things such as food and clothing, while the remaining 91% of spending per prisoner comes from \u003ca href=\"https://www.lao.ca.gov/PolicyAreas/CJ/6_cj_inmatecost\">fixed costs like salaries and facility upkeep\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She found that compensation for employees at the corrections department increased by 43% between 2010 and 2019 — from $110,000 to $158,000 — nearly \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4145\">triple the inflation rate\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last summer, the state prison guard contract included $10,000 bonuses for officers at certain prisons and a new guaranteed 401k contribution in addition to regular pension benefits. [aside postID=news_11965926 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/005_Sharon_230929_076-KQED-1020x680.jpg']The state’s current savings from prison closures, about $200 million per facility, is not nearly enough to offset those pay and benefits boosts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would have to close one or more prisons per year just to offset employee compensation increases that happen regularly,” O’Neil said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The peace officers’ union did not respond to requests for comment. Prison labor advocates often argue that jobs are dangerous and difficult to staff, warranting high compensation benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union can be a force in the Capitol. It has contributed \u003ca href=\"https://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?dt=1&s=CA&law-exi=1&law-ot=S,H&law-y=2023&d-eid=3286\">$2.2 million to the campaigns\u003c/a> of current state legislators, and it gave \u003ca href=\"https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1302403&view=contributions&session=2021\">$1.75 million to help Newsom\u003c/a> defeat a 2021 recall campaign. It also recently contributed\u003ca href=\"https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1302403&view=late2\"> $1 million to support Proposition 1\u003c/a>, the measure Newsom placed on the March ballot to build housing and treatment facilities for people with serious mental health conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite a precipitous decline in prison populations, corrections spending has remained relatively stable. In 2018, the average daily prison population topped 120,000 compared to a projected 90,240 people in 2024. That’s a 25% decrease. In contrast, correctional spending as a share of the total state budget has barely dropped from 7% to 6% in the same period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Over the past decade, the number of California inmates has dropped an estimated 25%\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-ymn5Y\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ymn5Y/6/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"250\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"At the same time, the California corrections department budget has increased\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-vYJdC\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vYJdC/5/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"300\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The cost per inmate is up 91%, with average medical spending more than doubled\" aria-label=\"Grouped Columns\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-7pZZu\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7pZZu/5/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"400\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What should be good news to opponents of mass incarceration — decreasing populations — has not resulted in a leaner criminal justice system. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Brian Kaneda, deputy director, Californians United for a Responsible Budget\"]‘If you have $700 million in annual savings from prison closure, but you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new prison infrastructure … that starts to show why the math isn’t mathing.’[/pullquote]“If you have $700 million in annual savings from prison closure, but you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new prison infrastructure and giving prison guards a billion-dollar raise [over three years], that starts to show why the math isn’t mathing,” Kaneda said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But wholesale cuts to correctional spending don’t necessarily always equate to better prison conditions, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.fordham.edu/school-of-law/faculty/directory/full-time/john-pfaff/\">John Pfaff\u003c/a>, a law professor at Fordham University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t cut [budgets] carefully, that makes prisons worse places to be. It makes them more dangerous, more traumatic,” Pfaff said. “I say that as someone who is not a fan at all of prisons as a general institution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Prison medical costs soar\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Medical care is one area of increased spending where the state, under court order, is trying to improve prison conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The average cost per person for medical care has more than doubled in the past 10 years, and total health care spending by the corrections department has increased by about 67%. Although the recent prison closures have cut about 2,700 correctional positions, medical spending has eaten up those savings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/08/california-union-prison-doctor-strike-vote/\">struggle to hire highly trained medical professionals\u003c/a> when they can easily find work elsewhere. The vacancy rate for psychiatrists exceeds 50% at some state hospitals and prisons, according to court documents filed in an ongoing lawsuit about prison conditions and safety, and 20% of positions for primary care doctors are empty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To fill the gap, California has spent more than $1.1 billion on temporary medical staff over the past five years, according to documents obtained by CalMatters through the California Public Records Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state tried to combat chronic staff shortages in the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2023/09/california-union-contract-doctor-bonuses/\">latest contract signed with the prison doctor’s union\u003c/a>, offering $42,000 bonuses on top of raises.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Should California close more prisons?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Former Assembly Budget Chair Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco, said corrections is the only state program where having fewer people translates into more spending. In 2022, Ting proposed \u003ca href=\"https://a19.asmdc.org/news/20221209-sac-bee-newsom-has-closed-3-prisons-now-lawmakers-are-planning-shut-more\">closing three more prisons\u003c/a> to bring down fixed costs and account for the shrinking number of prisoners. [aside postID=news_11969359 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230726-SAN-QUENTIN-MHN-12-qut-1020x680.jpg']“If we were educating 50% less kids, you’d see the funding go down. If we had 50% less people in health care or 50% fewer families using CalFresh, the programs would go down,” Ting said. “So how is it at a time when the prison population has not just gone down a little bit, has gone down significantly, that spending increased?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were roughly 15,000 empty beds last year in prisons across the state, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That number, driven largely by decades of sentencing changes and court-ordered mandates to decrease prison crowding, is expected to reach 20,000 over the next three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not not talking about some very small number where they want to keep a little bit of a buffer,” Ting said. “They want to keep three to five empty prisons up and running.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ting, who is no longer the budget chair, said he may still push to shut down more prisons this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"In California, this sharp increase was heightened by the pandemic and persists due to medical expenses for incarcerated individuals and increased compensation for guards and staff.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1706045989,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":true,"iframeSrcs":["https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ymn5Y/6/","https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vYJdC/5/","https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7pZZu/5/"],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":37,"wordCount":1719},"headData":{"title":"California Incarceration Expenses Double Top Private University Tuition | KQED","description":"In California, this sharp increase was heightened by the pandemic and persists due to medical expenses for incarcerated individuals and increased compensation for guards and staff.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"source":"CalMatters","sourceUrl":"https://calmatters.org/","sticky":false,"nprByline":"Kristen Hwang and Nigel Duara","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11973393/california-incarceration-expenses-double-top-private-university-tuition","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The cost of imprisoning one person in California has increased by more than 90% in the past decade, reaching a record-breaking $132,860 annually, according to state finance documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s nearly twice as expensive as the annual undergraduate tuition — $66,640 — at the University of Southern California, the most costly private university in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s spending per inmate jumped steeply during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it continued to increase despite recent cost-cutting moves, including Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent move to close three state prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s propelled by lucrative employee compensation deals and costly mandates to improve health care behind bars, according to fiscal analyses by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/01/newsom-budget-california/\">Newsom’s most recent budget proposal\u003c/a> includes $18.1 billion for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, up from $15.7 billion when he took office in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some lawmakers and advocates have argued California should focus on rehabilitation and shut down additional prisons to save money in the face of what the governor’s office projects to be a $38 billion deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office suggested the state could close as many as \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2023/02/how-many-prisons-does-california-need/\">five more state prisons\u003c/a> because of California’s declining inmate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would stand to save upwards of $1 billion in operating costs and even more money on unfunded capital improvement projects, the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s three closures and the cancellation of a contract for a fourth privately run prison save the state an estimated $667 million over the next year, according to the Department of Finance, but the savings are not enough to offset increased operational and employee costs. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘We remain committed to meeting the needs of staff and the incarcerated population while right-sizing California’s prison system as the prison population declines over time.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"H.D. Palmer, spokesperson, Department of Finance","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents 26,000 prison guards, last summer \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2023/08/ccpoa-contract-2023-california-prisons/\">negotiated a contract\u003c/a> with successive 3% raises and other perks that will cost the state roughly $1 billion over the next three years. The \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2023/09/california-union-contract-doctor-bonuses/\">prison doctors’ union\u003c/a>, which represents 1,700 employees, also negotiated a two-year contract with a combined 5.5% general salary increase and a range of other incentives. The Newsom administration estimates it will cost $234 million over three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom, at least for now, is not recommending any additional prison closures. Instead, his state budget proposal recommends keeping prisons open with fewer inmates in them to provide more space for rehabilitative programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The administration is not currently proposing any additional prison closures,” H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a statement. “We remain committed to meeting the needs of staff and the incarcerated population while right-sizing California’s prison system as the prison population declines over time and to addressing space needs as the state transforms the carceral system to one more focused on rehabilitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11973408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11973408\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut.jpg\" alt='A sign at Folsom Prison reads, \"All Prisoners Must Exit Vehicle Until Cleared By Officer.\"' width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/237_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An entrance to California State Prison, known as New Folsom Prison, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Opponents of mass incarceration say the administration’s argument for keeping empty prison beds open doesn’t align with how the money is spent. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘This is a cash grab by [the corrections department].’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Brian Kaneda, deputy director, Californians United for a Responsible Budget","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This is a cash grab by [the corrections department],” said Brian Kaneda, deputy director of the prison abolitionist group Californians United for a Responsible Budget. Newsom has touted \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/01/san-quentin-correctional-officer/\">transforming San Quentin State Prison\u003c/a> into a rehabilitation center, but advocates like Kaneda and state advisory groups say the plan is vague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rehabilitation costs, which currently include prisoner education and activities, only make up a fraction of total correctional spending — roughly 3% — over the past decade, according to state budget documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a written statement, the corrections department said its spending plan “judiciously uses taxpayer dollars in a manner that balances the need for cost-efficiency while maximizing public safety, the wellbeing of incarcerated people and successful rehabilitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Costs in California prisons\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The actual cost to house a prisoner is much closer to $15,000, said Caitlin O’Neil, a criminal justice analyst for the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Direct costs include things such as food and clothing, while the remaining 91% of spending per prisoner comes from \u003ca href=\"https://www.lao.ca.gov/PolicyAreas/CJ/6_cj_inmatecost\">fixed costs like salaries and facility upkeep\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She found that compensation for employees at the corrections department increased by 43% between 2010 and 2019 — from $110,000 to $158,000 — nearly \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4145\">triple the inflation rate\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last summer, the state prison guard contract included $10,000 bonuses for officers at certain prisons and a new guaranteed 401k contribution in addition to regular pension benefits. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11965926","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/005_Sharon_230929_076-KQED-1020x680.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The state’s current savings from prison closures, about $200 million per facility, is not nearly enough to offset those pay and benefits boosts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would have to close one or more prisons per year just to offset employee compensation increases that happen regularly,” O’Neil said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The peace officers’ union did not respond to requests for comment. Prison labor advocates often argue that jobs are dangerous and difficult to staff, warranting high compensation benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union can be a force in the Capitol. It has contributed \u003ca href=\"https://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?dt=1&s=CA&law-exi=1&law-ot=S,H&law-y=2023&d-eid=3286\">$2.2 million to the campaigns\u003c/a> of current state legislators, and it gave \u003ca href=\"https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1302403&view=contributions&session=2021\">$1.75 million to help Newsom\u003c/a> defeat a 2021 recall campaign. It also recently contributed\u003ca href=\"https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1302403&view=late2\"> $1 million to support Proposition 1\u003c/a>, the measure Newsom placed on the March ballot to build housing and treatment facilities for people with serious mental health conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite a precipitous decline in prison populations, corrections spending has remained relatively stable. In 2018, the average daily prison population topped 120,000 compared to a projected 90,240 people in 2024. That’s a 25% decrease. In contrast, correctional spending as a share of the total state budget has barely dropped from 7% to 6% in the same period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Over the past decade, the number of California inmates has dropped an estimated 25%\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-ymn5Y\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ymn5Y/6/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"250\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"At the same time, the California corrections department budget has increased\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-vYJdC\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vYJdC/5/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"300\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The cost per inmate is up 91%, with average medical spending more than doubled\" aria-label=\"Grouped Columns\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-7pZZu\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7pZZu/5/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"400\" data-external=\"1\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What should be good news to opponents of mass incarceration — decreasing populations — has not resulted in a leaner criminal justice system. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘If you have $700 million in annual savings from prison closure, but you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new prison infrastructure … that starts to show why the math isn’t mathing.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Brian Kaneda, deputy director, Californians United for a Responsible Budget","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“If you have $700 million in annual savings from prison closure, but you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new prison infrastructure and giving prison guards a billion-dollar raise [over three years], that starts to show why the math isn’t mathing,” Kaneda said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But wholesale cuts to correctional spending don’t necessarily always equate to better prison conditions, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.fordham.edu/school-of-law/faculty/directory/full-time/john-pfaff/\">John Pfaff\u003c/a>, a law professor at Fordham University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t cut [budgets] carefully, that makes prisons worse places to be. It makes them more dangerous, more traumatic,” Pfaff said. “I say that as someone who is not a fan at all of prisons as a general institution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Prison medical costs soar\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Medical care is one area of increased spending where the state, under court order, is trying to improve prison conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The average cost per person for medical care has more than doubled in the past 10 years, and total health care spending by the corrections department has increased by about 67%. Although the recent prison closures have cut about 2,700 correctional positions, medical spending has eaten up those savings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/08/california-union-prison-doctor-strike-vote/\">struggle to hire highly trained medical professionals\u003c/a> when they can easily find work elsewhere. The vacancy rate for psychiatrists exceeds 50% at some state hospitals and prisons, according to court documents filed in an ongoing lawsuit about prison conditions and safety, and 20% of positions for primary care doctors are empty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To fill the gap, California has spent more than $1.1 billion on temporary medical staff over the past five years, according to documents obtained by CalMatters through the California Public Records Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state tried to combat chronic staff shortages in the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2023/09/california-union-contract-doctor-bonuses/\">latest contract signed with the prison doctor’s union\u003c/a>, offering $42,000 bonuses on top of raises.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Should California close more prisons?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Former Assembly Budget Chair Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco, said corrections is the only state program where having fewer people translates into more spending. In 2022, Ting proposed \u003ca href=\"https://a19.asmdc.org/news/20221209-sac-bee-newsom-has-closed-3-prisons-now-lawmakers-are-planning-shut-more\">closing three more prisons\u003c/a> to bring down fixed costs and account for the shrinking number of prisoners. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11969359","hero":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230726-SAN-QUENTIN-MHN-12-qut-1020x680.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“If we were educating 50% less kids, you’d see the funding go down. If we had 50% less people in health care or 50% fewer families using CalFresh, the programs would go down,” Ting said. “So how is it at a time when the prison population has not just gone down a little bit, has gone down significantly, that spending increased?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were roughly 15,000 empty beds last year in prisons across the state, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That number, driven largely by decades of sentencing changes and court-ordered mandates to decrease prison crowding, is expected to reach 20,000 over the next three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not not talking about some very small number where they want to keep a little bit of a buffer,” Ting said. “They want to keep three to five empty prisons up and running.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ting, who is no longer the budget chair, said he may still push to shut down more prisons this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11973393/california-incarceration-expenses-double-top-private-university-tuition","authors":["byline_news_11973393"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_616","news_27626","news_16","news_2842"],"affiliates":["news_18481"],"featImg":"news_11973407","label":"source_news_11973393"},"news_11969359":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11969359","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11969359","score":null,"sort":[1702060214000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"hundred-of-californians-released-from-prison-could-receive-2400-under-new-state-program","title":"Hundreds of Californians Released From Prison Could Receive $2,400 Under New State Program","publishDate":1702060214,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Hundreds of Californians Released From Prison Could Receive $2,400 Under New State Program | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Hundreds of Californians released from prisons could receive direct cash payments of $2,400 — along with counseling, job search assistance and other support — under a first-in-the-nation program aimed at easing the transition out of incarceration and reducing recidivism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recipients will get the money over a series of payments after meeting certain milestones, such as showing progress in finding places to live and work, according to an announcement this week by the Center for Employment Opportunities, which will run the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to give people a chance “to cover their most essential needs” like bus fare and food during the crucial early days after exiting incarceration, said Samuel Schaeffer, CEO of the national nonprofit that helps those leaving lockups find jobs and achieve financial security.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first three to six months are the riskiest when many people end up back in prison,” Schaeffer said Thursday. “We want to take advantage of this moment to immediately connect people with services, with financial support, to avoid recidivism.”[aside label=\"More on California Prisons\" tag=\"california-prisons\"]The governor’s Workforce Development Board, devoted to improving the state’s labor pool, is providing a $6.9 million grant to boost community-based organizations and expand so-called re-entry services for the formerly incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About $2 million of that will go directly to formerly incarcerated people through cash payments totaling about $2,400 each. Schaeffer’s group said the money will be paid incrementally upon reaching milestones like participating in employment interview preparation meetings with a jobs coach, making progress toward earning an industry credential or certificate; and creating a budget and opening a bank account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schaeffer said the new program is a “game changer” and the first of its kind in the nation, one he hopes other states will copy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his group distributes money and coordinates services with local groups that provide career training and mental health counseling, among other resources. The program got a sort of test run at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when the Center for Employment Opportunities was tasked with distributing direct payments to about 10,000 formerly incarcerated people struggling financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schaeffer said that to promote equitable access to the funds, the center recommends its partners impose limited eligibility criteria for receiving payments. And there are no rules for how the money can be spent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates say people returning from incarceration often struggle to find places to live and work as they try to reintegrate back into their communities. Around 60% of formerly incarcerated individuals remain unemployed within the first year of being home, the center estimates.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003cbr>\nState Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a Republican from Palmdale who often focuses on justice system issues, said he applauds any attempt to reduce recidivism. But he worries this new program lacks a way to track progress and ensure taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we are going to issue stipends without parameters for accountability, I worry about the return on our investment as it relates to outcomes and community safety,” Lackey said in a statement on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schaeffer said he expects his organization to be flexible as the program rolls out, “to keep on refining it and keep on getting smarter on how to use it” and ensure every dollar counts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wish this partnership had existed while I was in re-entry,” said Carmen Garcia, who was formerly incarcerated and is now director of the Root & Rebound, a nonprofit offering legal advocacy for people leaving prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the expanded program will allow groups like his to “offer these expanded services to more people who are working to rebuild their lives after incarceration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Aimed at easing the transition out of incarceration and reducing recidivism, the first-in-the-nation initiative will also include counseling, job-search assistance and other support. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1702084166,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":14,"wordCount":638},"headData":{"title":"Hundreds of Californians Released From Prison Could Receive $2,400 Under New State Program | KQED","description":"Aimed at easing the transition out of incarceration and reducing recidivism, the first-in-the-nation initiative will also include counseling, job-search assistance and other support. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"Christopher Weber\u003cbr>Associated Press","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11969359/hundred-of-californians-released-from-prison-could-receive-2400-under-new-state-program","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Hundreds of Californians released from prisons could receive direct cash payments of $2,400 — along with counseling, job search assistance and other support — under a first-in-the-nation program aimed at easing the transition out of incarceration and reducing recidivism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recipients will get the money over a series of payments after meeting certain milestones, such as showing progress in finding places to live and work, according to an announcement this week by the Center for Employment Opportunities, which will run the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to give people a chance “to cover their most essential needs” like bus fare and food during the crucial early days after exiting incarceration, said Samuel Schaeffer, CEO of the national nonprofit that helps those leaving lockups find jobs and achieve financial security.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first three to six months are the riskiest when many people end up back in prison,” Schaeffer said Thursday. “We want to take advantage of this moment to immediately connect people with services, with financial support, to avoid recidivism.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"More on California Prisons ","tag":"california-prisons"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The governor’s Workforce Development Board, devoted to improving the state’s labor pool, is providing a $6.9 million grant to boost community-based organizations and expand so-called re-entry services for the formerly incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About $2 million of that will go directly to formerly incarcerated people through cash payments totaling about $2,400 each. Schaeffer’s group said the money will be paid incrementally upon reaching milestones like participating in employment interview preparation meetings with a jobs coach, making progress toward earning an industry credential or certificate; and creating a budget and opening a bank account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schaeffer said the new program is a “game changer” and the first of its kind in the nation, one he hopes other states will copy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his group distributes money and coordinates services with local groups that provide career training and mental health counseling, among other resources. The program got a sort of test run at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when the Center for Employment Opportunities was tasked with distributing direct payments to about 10,000 formerly incarcerated people struggling financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schaeffer said that to promote equitable access to the funds, the center recommends its partners impose limited eligibility criteria for receiving payments. And there are no rules for how the money can be spent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates say people returning from incarceration often struggle to find places to live and work as they try to reintegrate back into their communities. Around 60% of formerly incarcerated individuals remain unemployed within the first year of being home, the center estimates.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\nState Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a Republican from Palmdale who often focuses on justice system issues, said he applauds any attempt to reduce recidivism. But he worries this new program lacks a way to track progress and ensure taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we are going to issue stipends without parameters for accountability, I worry about the return on our investment as it relates to outcomes and community safety,” Lackey said in a statement on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schaeffer said he expects his organization to be flexible as the program rolls out, “to keep on refining it and keep on getting smarter on how to use it” and ensure every dollar counts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wish this partnership had existed while I was in re-entry,” said Carmen Garcia, who was formerly incarcerated and is now director of the Root & Rebound, a nonprofit offering legal advocacy for people leaving prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the expanded program will allow groups like his to “offer these expanded services to more people who are working to rebuild their lives after incarceration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11969359/hundred-of-californians-released-from-prison-could-receive-2400-under-new-state-program","authors":["byline_news_11969359"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_26658","news_616","news_1629","news_27626","news_33616","news_28392","news_23"],"featImg":"news_11969362","label":"news"},"news_11968486":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11968486","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11968486","score":null,"sort":[1701255606000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"the-bays-november-news-roundup-bart-bailout-prison-wages-tupac-shakur-way","title":"The Bay’s November News Roundup: Transit Funding, Prison Wages, and Tupac Shakur Way","publishDate":1701255606,"format":"audio","headTitle":"The Bay’s November News Roundup: Transit Funding, Prison Wages, and Tupac Shakur Way | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup (our last one of the year!), Ericka, Maria and Alan talk about how public transit agencies have temporarily averted a fiscal cliff, a proposal to increase the minimum wage for incarcerated workers, and the newly unveiled Tupac Shakur Way in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Links: \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/liveblog/bay-area-transportation-news#in-transit-why-a-transportation-and-transit-blog\">In Transit: Bay Area Transportation News on Everything That Moves\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cb>KQED: \u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11967728/california-prison-officials-aim-to-raise-hourly-minimum-wage-to-at-least-16-cents\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California Prison Officials Aim to Raise Hourly Minimum Wage for Incarcerated Workers — to at Least 16 Cents\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cb>KQED:\u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13937563/tupac-shakur-way-oakland-street-renaming\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Tupac Shakur Way’ Unveiled in Oakland as Rap Icon Gets His Own Street\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9612865389\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. And it’s time for our November news roundup. That time of the month where I sit down with the rest of the Bay team to discuss some of the stories that we’ve been following this month. I’ll have you all introduce yourselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi, this is Alan Montecillo and I’m the senior editor of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And I’m Maria Esquinca, and I’m the producer for the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And we are. I feel like in kind of the middle of holiday season, I feel like a lot of people are definitely feeling like, let’s just get to the holidays, y’all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Another busy news month. We had APEC in town was APEC epic. I’ll let you all decide that the news cycle keeps going, but for a lot of people too, it’s it’s just trying to get through the last few weeks before the winter holidays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And it’s cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>It’s so cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It is so cold. I just want to, like, stay in my bed and cuddle with my big old cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It’s Bay Area cold, but it is cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>It’s cozy season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It is. And this is also probably going to be our last news roundup of the year, actually. And so let’s kick it off. Alan, I want to start with you. You got some good news about Barton Muni, which I feel like we don’t get much of these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah, good news for people who like transit. Bart and the S.F. MTA and transit agencies across the region have avoided the devastating fiscal cliff for now. Basically, the state legislature approved $1.1 billion for transit agencies across the state, $352 million for Bart, $308 million for Muni for the next two fiscal years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is, of course, been a huge problem, especially since the pandemic, which really impacted services like Bart. So what exactly is this money going to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Essentially my understanding is this is just there to keep services afloat. Ever since pandemic relief funding ran out and frankly, ever since the pandemic caused such a huge drop off in ridership. You know, agencies that are so reliant on fares are just facing huge budget deficits. And so without money to close those gaps, our agencies would likely have to make major cuts in service. That would probably reduce ridership, which would probably reduce revenue, which would probably result in cuts to service and on and on and on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Okay. So this sounds like a lot of money that’s going to help the agencies for now. But are there any strings attached?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yes. And I think this is the interesting part of it. In order to access these funds, all transit agencies, not just Bart and SFO, to have to do a few things. One is that they have to continue to follow through with efforts across the region to basically increase coordination among all the transit agencies. So there’s already work around things like getting the schedules integrated, changing the payment system. We’re going to be soon moving to a system where you don’t have to have a clipper card to pay. You can actually use your debit card or credit card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>They also must submit reports on what they’re going to continue to do to improve public safety. As we know, that’s been a major concern among many riders. And then there’s another provision which is specific to Bart, which is that they must complete their work on replacing their fare gates, more than 700 fare gates specifically. This is a measure to stop fare evasion. So Bart is and must continue to replace them with fare gates that are bigger, that are basically harder to jump over. They have to complete that work by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So these millions of dollars, they’re going to last until 2026. But what is going to happen to these agencies after that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, the timing of this is interesting because this money is allocated for the next two fiscal years. It’s not a long term structural solution to keeping transit agencies afloat. It kicks the can down the road. Many people, including members of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is the agency that oversees transit in the Bay Area, have already floated the idea of a ballot measure in 2026 that could raise up to $1 billion for transit agencies. So essentially, Bart and Muni especially are kind of on the clock for the next few years to make these improvements, to basically make the case to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>We’ve talked about this before, that, hey, we should continue to fund transit. Who knows, right. In 2026, maybe people will say, hey, like, you know, Bart and Muni are back, it’s clean and feel safe and maybe people will want to reward that. Or maybe it won’t. This is sort of the beginning of what I think is 2 to 3 year window for transit to really, I think, make the case to voters and to legislators that transit should continue to be funded and that taxpayers should continue to help keep the agencies afloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, definitely something we’re going to be following here on the bay. And also, I wanted to just shout out Dan Brekke, our transportation editor here at KQED, who’s actually got a new live blog about transportation news. And everything that moves in the Bay Area is called In Transit. We’ll also leave a link in our show notes to that new blog. All right, Alan, thank you so much for that one. Coming up after the break, we’re going to talk about a proposal to pay working inmates more in California prisons. And Tupac Shakur, way in Oakland. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Maria, I want to move on to you. What story have you been following this month?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So the story that I’ve been following is a proposal by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, commonly known as CDCr. And they’re proposing to increase wages for prisoners. What they have is a piece schedule. And this pay schedule is divided based on the way they categorize skills. And they’re starting at the lowest skill from $0.08 an hour to $0.16 an hour. The highest wage increase we would see is people that get paid $0.37 an hour would get paid $0.74 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What are these wages for? I assume they’re for jobs. What kinds of jobs are we talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so we’re talking about jobs that people do in state prisons, and that can vary from maintenance jobs to custodial jobs to food to critical service. And based on all these different types of of jobs, people are categorized into various skill levels or specialized kind of skills and that determines their wages. And so what this proposal will do is double it for every skill level that people are categorized in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So CDCr is saying that the reason they’re proposing these wage increases is to help workers retain their jobs. That will help support their rehabilitation, that it’ll give them greater buying power. And some prisoners have to do what is called restitution payments, which is money that they pay back to the state for their crime. And so they’re also arguing that this will help them meet those payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay. So, Maria, this is what CDCr is proposing, but what do advocacy groups think of this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Farida Jhabvala Romero who reported the story for KQED, spoke to Lawrence Cox, who worked as an inmate in California state prisons for seven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lawrence Cox: \u003c/strong>The jobs I did were behind the wall in the kitchen, helping prepare food for the entire prison complex. I did janitorial services sanitizing the area, the showers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>He talks about what people use this money for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lawrence Cox: \u003c/strong>Food, I need hygiene. Of course they feed us. But if anyone knows that’s been there, the food is deplorable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And he also says that this proposal is shameful. This sort of increase is still nothing about the money that they make in prison was already not enough to cover any of these things. He talks about how people in prison want to also support their family and that the wages that they make already are not enough. And this increase is really, in his words, shameful to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lawrence Cox: \u003c/strong>The practices of. Exploiting individuals is deplorable. Like it’s sorry. Give me an increase in 16 cent. I still I still can’t do anything with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I guess, what do you think we should make of this story then, Maria? I mean, we we really are still talking about nickels and dimes here, people getting paid. I mean, like not even a dollar an hour for their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I think I also struggled with like, how to interpret this because I think at face value it seems like in like proposal to increase someone’s wages seems like a great idea. But I think like critics who are following this story, who work in prison reform or who advocate for prisoners, call this proposal grossly insufficient. They also argue that they’re not sure how people in prison will even make more money because part of this proposal is to cut most of these full time jobs into part time jobs. There has been a lot of criticism about prisons in general, and there has been a lot of conversations about abolition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>I think this story scratches at the surface of conditions that might seem to better the lives of prisoners. But at the end of the day, we’re still talking about a pay schedule that has remained unchanged for the past 30 years. And so I think we’re it sort of returns us to the same place where we began, where there’s people that are like Lauren’s that rejected the idea that this is going to better the lives of people in prison in any way. And so I think it forces us to, again, think of what would actually better the lives of people in prison and what do people in prison actually want?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And lastly, we have my story out of Oakland, where earlier this month, in a star studded ceremony, Tupac Shakur Way was unveiled near Lake Merritt along a portion of MacArthur Boulevard where Tupac Shakur lived in the early 90s. There were a bunch of folks there, E-40, M.C. Hammer and even members of Tupac Shakur’s family, including his siblings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So Tupac born in New York. But I think a lot of people also probably know about his Bay Area ties. I’m sure some of that came up at the ceremony as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, like you said, Tupac was born in New York City, but he lived in a bunch of different cities throughout his life, like Baltimore, famously Marin City, Santa Rosa, Richmond, Los Angeles. But Tupac kind of famously claimed Oakland in a 1993 interview as the place where he says that he learned the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tupac Shakur: \u003c/strong>The game is now one person. The game is just end. Game is ending. It was just a rough year. Somebody just woke it up inside me, you know what I’m saying? Like the lack of religion. And I just saw it and I saw it in Oakland. I saw it living in Oakland. I saw it thriving in Oakland. And that’s that was never no other city I lived in. So I give all my love to Oakland. If I’m acclaimed somewhere, I’m a claim Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So this effort to name a street after Tupac was actually spearheaded by his sister, a council member, Carol Fife, hip hop historian Leroy McCarthy, and one of Tupac’s closest friends, Ray Love, who really talked about how Oakland had a huge influence on his artistic development and also his political mindset. His mom was part of the Black Panther Party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>His friends and family say that Oakland is really where the birth of hip hop was based for them, especially around digital underground. And also, Tupac famously sued the Oakland Police Department in 1991 after they allegedly slammed and arrested him for jaywalking. He just has a lot of roots here. And as you heard in that clip, he gives all his love to Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Tupac is also really known for his political outspokenness. I’m curious how you’re thinking of him in a moment like this as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen a lot of other hip hop legends being honored in this way all around the Bay Area. We had E-40 in Vallejo. He had to store in East Oakland. And at the ceremony, you heard a lot of people really wanting to honor Tupac’s importance to Oakland, but also hip hop culture at large, especially in this 50th anniversary of hip hop this year. And Councilmember Carroll Fife actually talked about how the naming of this street honoring Tupac is really about preserving some of what Tupac was trying to tell us back in the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carroll Fife: \u003c/strong>He said Oakland gave him his game. Right. And it’s done that for a lot of us, Right. It’s done that for a lot of us. So let’s remember the game that it gave. Let’s remember we got to pour into our city. We got to pour into solutions. We got to pour into what we know he stood for, regardless of what the press and everybody else was trying. And we loved him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This idea of really kind of pouring into solutions at a time where there is just so much conflict going on in the world and really honoring some of the things that he really stood for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Music] \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>All right. And this is, again, probably our last news roundup of the year. Maria Elena and I, we really tried a new thing with this, so we’ll probably keep doing that next year. Hope you liked them as much as we did to John. Enjoy doing these little roundups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Oh yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It’s fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>No, it’s been fun. It’s nice to get to shake up the format a little bit and to make more space for four more stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And it’s always nice talking to the two of you in person and chatting, and I hope listeners enjoy it as much as we have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Right. Alan and Maria, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. Thank you for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":null,"status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1702492913,"stats":{"hasAudio":true,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":64,"wordCount":2833},"headData":{"title":"The Bay’s November News Roundup: Transit Funding, Prison Wages, and Tupac Shakur Way | KQED","description":"View the full episode transcript. In this edition of The Bay's monthly news roundup (our last one of the year!), Ericka, Maria and Alan talk about how public transit agencies have temporarily averted a fiscal cliff, a proposal to increase the minimum wage for incarcerated workers, and the newly unveiled Tupac Shakur Way in Oakland. Links: In Transit: Bay Area Transportation News on Everything That Moves KQED: California Prison Officials Aim to Raise Hourly Minimum Wage for Incarcerated Workers — to at Least 16 Cents KQED: 'Tupac Shakur Way' Unveiled in Oakland as Rap Icon Gets His Own Street Episode","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"source":"The Bay","sourceUrl":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC9612865389.mp3?updated=1701208122","audioUrl":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC9612865389.mp3?updated=1701208122","sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11968486/the-bays-november-news-roundup-bart-bailout-prison-wages-tupac-shakur-way","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this edition of The Bay’s monthly news roundup (our last one of the year!), Ericka, Maria and Alan talk about how public transit agencies have temporarily averted a fiscal cliff, a proposal to increase the minimum wage for incarcerated workers, and the newly unveiled Tupac Shakur Way in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Links: \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/liveblog/bay-area-transportation-news#in-transit-why-a-transportation-and-transit-blog\">In Transit: Bay Area Transportation News on Everything That Moves\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cb>KQED: \u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11967728/california-prison-officials-aim-to-raise-hourly-minimum-wage-to-at-least-16-cents\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California Prison Officials Aim to Raise Hourly Minimum Wage for Incarcerated Workers — to at Least 16 Cents\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cb>KQED:\u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13937563/tupac-shakur-way-oakland-street-renaming\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Tupac Shakur Way’ Unveiled in Oakland as Rap Icon Gets His Own Street\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9612865389\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. And it’s time for our November news roundup. That time of the month where I sit down with the rest of the Bay team to discuss some of the stories that we’ve been following this month. I’ll have you all introduce yourselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Hi, this is Alan Montecillo and I’m the senior editor of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And I’m Maria Esquinca, and I’m the producer for the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And we are. I feel like in kind of the middle of holiday season, I feel like a lot of people are definitely feeling like, let’s just get to the holidays, y’all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah. Another busy news month. We had APEC in town was APEC epic. I’ll let you all decide that the news cycle keeps going, but for a lot of people too, it’s it’s just trying to get through the last few weeks before the winter holidays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And it’s cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>It’s so cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It is so cold. I just want to, like, stay in my bed and cuddle with my big old cat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It’s Bay Area cold, but it is cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>It’s cozy season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>It is. And this is also probably going to be our last news roundup of the year, actually. And so let’s kick it off. Alan, I want to start with you. You got some good news about Barton Muni, which I feel like we don’t get much of these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yeah, good news for people who like transit. Bart and the S.F. MTA and transit agencies across the region have avoided the devastating fiscal cliff for now. Basically, the state legislature approved $1.1 billion for transit agencies across the state, $352 million for Bart, $308 million for Muni for the next two fiscal years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This is, of course, been a huge problem, especially since the pandemic, which really impacted services like Bart. So what exactly is this money going to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Essentially my understanding is this is just there to keep services afloat. Ever since pandemic relief funding ran out and frankly, ever since the pandemic caused such a huge drop off in ridership. You know, agencies that are so reliant on fares are just facing huge budget deficits. And so without money to close those gaps, our agencies would likely have to make major cuts in service. That would probably reduce ridership, which would probably reduce revenue, which would probably result in cuts to service and on and on and on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Okay. So this sounds like a lot of money that’s going to help the agencies for now. But are there any strings attached?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Yes. And I think this is the interesting part of it. In order to access these funds, all transit agencies, not just Bart and SFO, to have to do a few things. One is that they have to continue to follow through with efforts across the region to basically increase coordination among all the transit agencies. So there’s already work around things like getting the schedules integrated, changing the payment system. We’re going to be soon moving to a system where you don’t have to have a clipper card to pay. You can actually use your debit card or credit card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>They also must submit reports on what they’re going to continue to do to improve public safety. As we know, that’s been a major concern among many riders. And then there’s another provision which is specific to Bart, which is that they must complete their work on replacing their fare gates, more than 700 fare gates specifically. This is a measure to stop fare evasion. So Bart is and must continue to replace them with fare gates that are bigger, that are basically harder to jump over. They have to complete that work by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So these millions of dollars, they’re going to last until 2026. But what is going to happen to these agencies after that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Well, the timing of this is interesting because this money is allocated for the next two fiscal years. It’s not a long term structural solution to keeping transit agencies afloat. It kicks the can down the road. Many people, including members of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is the agency that oversees transit in the Bay Area, have already floated the idea of a ballot measure in 2026 that could raise up to $1 billion for transit agencies. So essentially, Bart and Muni especially are kind of on the clock for the next few years to make these improvements, to basically make the case to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>We’ve talked about this before, that, hey, we should continue to fund transit. Who knows, right. In 2026, maybe people will say, hey, like, you know, Bart and Muni are back, it’s clean and feel safe and maybe people will want to reward that. Or maybe it won’t. This is sort of the beginning of what I think is 2 to 3 year window for transit to really, I think, make the case to voters and to legislators that transit should continue to be funded and that taxpayers should continue to help keep the agencies afloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, definitely something we’re going to be following here on the bay. And also, I wanted to just shout out Dan Brekke, our transportation editor here at KQED, who’s actually got a new live blog about transportation news. And everything that moves in the Bay Area is called In Transit. We’ll also leave a link in our show notes to that new blog. All right, Alan, thank you so much for that one. Coming up after the break, we’re going to talk about a proposal to pay working inmates more in California prisons. And Tupac Shakur, way in Oakland. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Maria, I want to move on to you. What story have you been following this month?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So the story that I’ve been following is a proposal by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, commonly known as CDCr. And they’re proposing to increase wages for prisoners. What they have is a piece schedule. And this pay schedule is divided based on the way they categorize skills. And they’re starting at the lowest skill from $0.08 an hour to $0.16 an hour. The highest wage increase we would see is people that get paid $0.37 an hour would get paid $0.74 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>What are these wages for? I assume they’re for jobs. What kinds of jobs are we talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah, so we’re talking about jobs that people do in state prisons, and that can vary from maintenance jobs to custodial jobs to food to critical service. And based on all these different types of of jobs, people are categorized into various skill levels or specialized kind of skills and that determines their wages. And so what this proposal will do is double it for every skill level that people are categorized in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>So CDCr is saying that the reason they’re proposing these wage increases is to help workers retain their jobs. That will help support their rehabilitation, that it’ll give them greater buying power. And some prisoners have to do what is called restitution payments, which is money that they pay back to the state for their crime. And so they’re also arguing that this will help them meet those payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Okay. So, Maria, this is what CDCr is proposing, but what do advocacy groups think of this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Farida Jhabvala Romero who reported the story for KQED, spoke to Lawrence Cox, who worked as an inmate in California state prisons for seven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lawrence Cox: \u003c/strong>The jobs I did were behind the wall in the kitchen, helping prepare food for the entire prison complex. I did janitorial services sanitizing the area, the showers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>He talks about what people use this money for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lawrence Cox: \u003c/strong>Food, I need hygiene. Of course they feed us. But if anyone knows that’s been there, the food is deplorable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>And he also says that this proposal is shameful. This sort of increase is still nothing about the money that they make in prison was already not enough to cover any of these things. He talks about how people in prison want to also support their family and that the wages that they make already are not enough. And this increase is really, in his words, shameful to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lawrence Cox: \u003c/strong>The practices of. Exploiting individuals is deplorable. Like it’s sorry. Give me an increase in 16 cent. I still I still can’t do anything with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Well, I guess, what do you think we should make of this story then, Maria? I mean, we we really are still talking about nickels and dimes here, people getting paid. I mean, like not even a dollar an hour for their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I think I also struggled with like, how to interpret this because I think at face value it seems like in like proposal to increase someone’s wages seems like a great idea. But I think like critics who are following this story, who work in prison reform or who advocate for prisoners, call this proposal grossly insufficient. They also argue that they’re not sure how people in prison will even make more money because part of this proposal is to cut most of these full time jobs into part time jobs. There has been a lot of criticism about prisons in general, and there has been a lot of conversations about abolition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>I think this story scratches at the surface of conditions that might seem to better the lives of prisoners. But at the end of the day, we’re still talking about a pay schedule that has remained unchanged for the past 30 years. And so I think we’re it sort of returns us to the same place where we began, where there’s people that are like Lauren’s that rejected the idea that this is going to better the lives of people in prison in any way. And so I think it forces us to, again, think of what would actually better the lives of people in prison and what do people in prison actually want?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And lastly, we have my story out of Oakland, where earlier this month, in a star studded ceremony, Tupac Shakur Way was unveiled near Lake Merritt along a portion of MacArthur Boulevard where Tupac Shakur lived in the early 90s. There were a bunch of folks there, E-40, M.C. Hammer and even members of Tupac Shakur’s family, including his siblings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>So Tupac born in New York. But I think a lot of people also probably know about his Bay Area ties. I’m sure some of that came up at the ceremony as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah. I mean, like you said, Tupac was born in New York City, but he lived in a bunch of different cities throughout his life, like Baltimore, famously Marin City, Santa Rosa, Richmond, Los Angeles. But Tupac kind of famously claimed Oakland in a 1993 interview as the place where he says that he learned the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tupac Shakur: \u003c/strong>The game is now one person. The game is just end. Game is ending. It was just a rough year. Somebody just woke it up inside me, you know what I’m saying? Like the lack of religion. And I just saw it and I saw it in Oakland. I saw it living in Oakland. I saw it thriving in Oakland. And that’s that was never no other city I lived in. So I give all my love to Oakland. If I’m acclaimed somewhere, I’m a claim Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>So this effort to name a street after Tupac was actually spearheaded by his sister, a council member, Carol Fife, hip hop historian Leroy McCarthy, and one of Tupac’s closest friends, Ray Love, who really talked about how Oakland had a huge influence on his artistic development and also his political mindset. His mom was part of the Black Panther Party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>His friends and family say that Oakland is really where the birth of hip hop was based for them, especially around digital underground. And also, Tupac famously sued the Oakland Police Department in 1991 after they allegedly slammed and arrested him for jaywalking. He just has a lot of roots here. And as you heard in that clip, he gives all his love to Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Tupac is also really known for his political outspokenness. I’m curious how you’re thinking of him in a moment like this as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen a lot of other hip hop legends being honored in this way all around the Bay Area. We had E-40 in Vallejo. He had to store in East Oakland. And at the ceremony, you heard a lot of people really wanting to honor Tupac’s importance to Oakland, but also hip hop culture at large, especially in this 50th anniversary of hip hop this year. And Councilmember Carroll Fife actually talked about how the naming of this street honoring Tupac is really about preserving some of what Tupac was trying to tell us back in the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Carroll Fife: \u003c/strong>He said Oakland gave him his game. Right. And it’s done that for a lot of us, Right. It’s done that for a lot of us. So let’s remember the game that it gave. Let’s remember we got to pour into our city. We got to pour into solutions. We got to pour into what we know he stood for, regardless of what the press and everybody else was trying. And we loved him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This idea of really kind of pouring into solutions at a time where there is just so much conflict going on in the world and really honoring some of the things that he really stood for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Music] \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>All right. And this is, again, probably our last news roundup of the year. Maria Elena and I, we really tried a new thing with this, so we’ll probably keep doing that next year. Hope you liked them as much as we did to John. Enjoy doing these little roundups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Oh yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>It’s fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>No, it’s been fun. It’s nice to get to shake up the format a little bit and to make more space for four more stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Yeah. And it’s always nice talking to the two of you in person and chatting, and I hope listeners enjoy it as much as we have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Right. Alan and Maria, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maria Esquinca: \u003c/strong>Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/strong>Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. Thank you for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11968486/the-bays-november-news-roundup-bart-bailout-prison-wages-tupac-shakur-way","authors":["8654","11802","11649"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_269","news_616","news_18","news_22598"],"featImg":"news_11968489","label":"source_news_11968486"},"news_11967728":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11967728","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11967728","score":null,"sort":[1700258457000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-prison-officials-aim-to-raise-hourly-minimum-wage-to-at-least-16-cents","title":"California Prison Officials Aim to Raise Hourly Minimum Wage for Incarcerated Workers — to at Least 16 Cents","publishDate":1700258457,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Prison Officials Aim to Raise Hourly Minimum Wage for Incarcerated Workers — to at Least 16 Cents | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#correction\">This story contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the seven years Lawrence Cox worked as an inmate in California state prisons, he washed kitchen dishes and pans and cleaned urinals and dormitories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cox said he was never paid more than 18 cents an hour and was not paid at all for some work assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation then deducted about half of his meager earnings to cover court-imposed restitution fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Cox was eventually released last year, he was entitled under \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2007/pen/2700-2717.html\">state law\u003c/a> to collect $200, but received no additional compensation for his many years of labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like a lot of people, I got out with really nothing,” said Cox, 39. He said he was lucky to get financial help from loved ones, but it was still difficult for him to afford housing, transportation and other basic services as he tried to reestablish himself after serving time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/regulations/wp-content/uploads/sites/171/2023/10/NCR-23-11-Inmate-Pay-Rates-Schedules-and-Exceptions.pdf\">Under a recent CDCR proposal\u003c/a>, tens of thousands of incarcerated workers in state prisons would get marginal wage increases, but most would still earn well under $1 per hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan calls for doubling the minimum wage — from its current rate of just 8 cents an hour to 16 cents. Incarcerated people with the highest skill levels or in lead positions would earn as much as 74 cents an hour, up from 37 cents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is seeking public comment on the proposed changes through Nov. 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 39,000 incarcerated people have job assignments in state prisons, doing everything from construction and maintenance work to custodial, food and clerical services, among a host of other \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/202120220ACA3_Senate-Appropriations-4.pdf\">jobs\u003c/a>. Some also \u003ca href=\"https://www.calpia.ca.gov/about/\">manufacture\u003c/a> products like office furniture, license plates, cell phone equipment and eyewear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"prisons\"]More than 1,000 incarcerated firefighters across the state would also receive a pay hike. Under the new proposal, they would earn a maximum daily rate ranging between $5.80 to $10.24, about double their current daily rate of $2.90 to $5.13 — which includes an additional $1 per hour when battling active fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR said these wage increases would incentivize incarcerated workers to retain jobs that support their rehabilitation and would give them greater “buying power” for canteen hygiene and food items. It would also provide the state with more firefighting personnel, the agency noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is the responsibility of CDCR to ensure its inmate population is treated with dignity and has the resources and skills needed to transition back to society. This responsibility extends to fair compensation for jobs performed while incarcerated,” CDCR said in its \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/regulations/wp-content/uploads/sites/171/2023/10/NCR-23-11-Inmate-Pay-Rates-Schedules-and-Exceptions.pdf\">notice\u003c/a> of the regulation changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increased compensation will also help workers meet restitution-payment requirements for crime victims and save more money for after their release, Tessa Outhyse, a CDCR spokesperson, said in an email to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed regulations would additionally eliminate all unpaid work assignments, Outhyse added, although it would also reduce a majority of full-time job assignments to half-time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CDCR values the contributions of its incarcerated workers and is committed to its mission to prepare people in its custody to successfully return to their communities,” Outhyse said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some living wage advocates have slammed CDCR’s proposed pay increases, calling them grossly insufficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Members of the \u003ca href=\"https://onefairwage.site/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CA_NeedsLivingWage_2304.pdf\">California Living Wage For All Coalition \u003c/a>have questioned how incarcerated people will make more money, even with a wage hike, if their total hours are cut. They also argue that subminimum wages contribute to recidivism, as incarcerated people are often released into abject poverty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s shameful,” said Cox, who now works as a policy and organizing associate at \u003ca href=\"https://prisonerswithchildren.org\">Legal Services for Prisoners with Children\u003c/a>, an Oakland-based nonprofit. “To continue the practice of exploiting individuals is just deplorable. An increase to 16 cents … I still can’t do anything with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s pay schedule for incarcerated workers has remained largely unchanged for the last 30 years. The state’s hourly pay rate is well below the national average, which was 39 cents in 2017, according to CDCR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates argue the state has the ability to pay incarcerated workers higher wages. They point to the California Prison Industry Authority’s \u003ca href=\"https://jointventureprogram.calpia.ca.gov/workers-wages/\">Joint Venture Program\u003c/a>, which offers incarcerated workers comparable wages to those outside prison. The program boasts \u003ca href=\"https://jointventureprogram.calpia.ca.gov/benefits/\">a 9% recidivism rate\u003c/a>, drastically lower than for CDCR’s general population, although only 13 incarcerated workers are currently participating in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids slavery and involuntary servitude except to punish crime. California’s law contains that \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/constitution/california/article-i/section-6/#:~:text=SEC.,prohibited%20except%20to%20punish%20crime.\">same exemption\u003c/a>, which allows CDCR to compel incarcerated people to work, regardless of the wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voters in several states, including Oregon and Alabama, recently approved measures removing\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-california-nevada-constitutions-cd220ed1abfd63c5971ee1394756c7e7\"> involuntary servitude\u003c/a> from their constitutions. However, a proposed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240ACA8\">constitutional amendment\u003c/a> in California to prohibit involuntary servitude as a punishment to a crime is being considered in the state Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1371\">bill\u003c/a> to require CDCR to adopt a five-year plan to increase incarcerated workers’ wages was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year because of its fiscal impact, estimated at more than $400 million per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SB-1371-VETO.pdf?emrc=bdd649\">argued\u003c/a> that with lower-than-expected revenues, the state must prioritize existing obligations and priorities, such as education and health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca id=\"correction\">\u003c/a>January 29: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a California constitutional amendment to prohibit all forms of involuntary servitude died in the state Legislature last year. This story has been edited to correct the inaccuracy that the measure is still being considered by the state Legislature.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Tens of thousands of incarcerated workers in California could soon get a slight wage increase, but most would still earn well under $1 an hour.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1706553825,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":28,"wordCount":943},"headData":{"title":"California Prison Officials Aim to Raise Hourly Minimum Wage for Incarcerated Workers — to at Least 16 Cents | KQED","description":"Tens of thousands of incarcerated workers in California could soon get a slight wage increase, but most would still earn well under $1 an hour.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11967728/california-prison-officials-aim-to-raise-hourly-minimum-wage-to-at-least-16-cents","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#correction\">This story contains a correction.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the seven years Lawrence Cox worked as an inmate in California state prisons, he washed kitchen dishes and pans and cleaned urinals and dormitories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cox said he was never paid more than 18 cents an hour and was not paid at all for some work assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation then deducted about half of his meager earnings to cover court-imposed restitution fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Cox was eventually released last year, he was entitled under \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2007/pen/2700-2717.html\">state law\u003c/a> to collect $200, but received no additional compensation for his many years of labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like a lot of people, I got out with really nothing,” said Cox, 39. He said he was lucky to get financial help from loved ones, but it was still difficult for him to afford housing, transportation and other basic services as he tried to reestablish himself after serving time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/regulations/wp-content/uploads/sites/171/2023/10/NCR-23-11-Inmate-Pay-Rates-Schedules-and-Exceptions.pdf\">Under a recent CDCR proposal\u003c/a>, tens of thousands of incarcerated workers in state prisons would get marginal wage increases, but most would still earn well under $1 per hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan calls for doubling the minimum wage — from its current rate of just 8 cents an hour to 16 cents. Incarcerated people with the highest skill levels or in lead positions would earn as much as 74 cents an hour, up from 37 cents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is seeking public comment on the proposed changes through Nov. 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 39,000 incarcerated people have job assignments in state prisons, doing everything from construction and maintenance work to custodial, food and clerical services, among a host of other \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/202120220ACA3_Senate-Appropriations-4.pdf\">jobs\u003c/a>. Some also \u003ca href=\"https://www.calpia.ca.gov/about/\">manufacture\u003c/a> products like office furniture, license plates, cell phone equipment and eyewear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"related coverage ","tag":"prisons"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>More than 1,000 incarcerated firefighters across the state would also receive a pay hike. Under the new proposal, they would earn a maximum daily rate ranging between $5.80 to $10.24, about double their current daily rate of $2.90 to $5.13 — which includes an additional $1 per hour when battling active fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR said these wage increases would incentivize incarcerated workers to retain jobs that support their rehabilitation and would give them greater “buying power” for canteen hygiene and food items. It would also provide the state with more firefighting personnel, the agency noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is the responsibility of CDCR to ensure its inmate population is treated with dignity and has the resources and skills needed to transition back to society. This responsibility extends to fair compensation for jobs performed while incarcerated,” CDCR said in its \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/regulations/wp-content/uploads/sites/171/2023/10/NCR-23-11-Inmate-Pay-Rates-Schedules-and-Exceptions.pdf\">notice\u003c/a> of the regulation changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increased compensation will also help workers meet restitution-payment requirements for crime victims and save more money for after their release, Tessa Outhyse, a CDCR spokesperson, said in an email to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed regulations would additionally eliminate all unpaid work assignments, Outhyse added, although it would also reduce a majority of full-time job assignments to half-time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CDCR values the contributions of its incarcerated workers and is committed to its mission to prepare people in its custody to successfully return to their communities,” Outhyse said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some living wage advocates have slammed CDCR’s proposed pay increases, calling them grossly insufficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Members of the \u003ca href=\"https://onefairwage.site/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CA_NeedsLivingWage_2304.pdf\">California Living Wage For All Coalition \u003c/a>have questioned how incarcerated people will make more money, even with a wage hike, if their total hours are cut. They also argue that subminimum wages contribute to recidivism, as incarcerated people are often released into abject poverty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s shameful,” said Cox, who now works as a policy and organizing associate at \u003ca href=\"https://prisonerswithchildren.org\">Legal Services for Prisoners with Children\u003c/a>, an Oakland-based nonprofit. “To continue the practice of exploiting individuals is just deplorable. An increase to 16 cents … I still can’t do anything with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s pay schedule for incarcerated workers has remained largely unchanged for the last 30 years. The state’s hourly pay rate is well below the national average, which was 39 cents in 2017, according to CDCR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates argue the state has the ability to pay incarcerated workers higher wages. They point to the California Prison Industry Authority’s \u003ca href=\"https://jointventureprogram.calpia.ca.gov/workers-wages/\">Joint Venture Program\u003c/a>, which offers incarcerated workers comparable wages to those outside prison. The program boasts \u003ca href=\"https://jointventureprogram.calpia.ca.gov/benefits/\">a 9% recidivism rate\u003c/a>, drastically lower than for CDCR’s general population, although only 13 incarcerated workers are currently participating in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids slavery and involuntary servitude except to punish crime. California’s law contains that \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/constitution/california/article-i/section-6/#:~:text=SEC.,prohibited%20except%20to%20punish%20crime.\">same exemption\u003c/a>, which allows CDCR to compel incarcerated people to work, regardless of the wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Voters in several states, including Oregon and Alabama, recently approved measures removing\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-california-nevada-constitutions-cd220ed1abfd63c5971ee1394756c7e7\"> involuntary servitude\u003c/a> from their constitutions. However, a proposed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240ACA8\">constitutional amendment\u003c/a> in California to prohibit involuntary servitude as a punishment to a crime is being considered in the state Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1371\">bill\u003c/a> to require CDCR to adopt a five-year plan to increase incarcerated workers’ wages was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year because of its fiscal impact, estimated at more than $400 million per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SB-1371-VETO.pdf?emrc=bdd649\">argued\u003c/a> that with lower-than-expected revenues, the state must prioritize existing obligations and priorities, such as education and health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca id=\"correction\">\u003c/a>January 29: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a California constitutional amendment to prohibit all forms of involuntary servitude died in the state Legislature last year. This story has been edited to correct the inaccuracy that the measure is still being considered by the state Legislature.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11967728/california-prison-officials-aim-to-raise-hourly-minimum-wage-to-at-least-16-cents","authors":["8659"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_1628","news_616","news_1629","news_27626","news_33501","news_19904","news_33502","news_33500"],"featImg":"news_11967747","label":"news"},"news_11965926":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11965926","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11965926","score":null,"sort":[1698836430000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"survivors-of-californias-forced-sterilization-denied-reparations","title":"Survivors from California’s Period of Forced Sterilization Denied Reparations","publishDate":1698836430,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Survivors from California’s Period of Forced Sterilization Denied Reparations | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>In March 2006, Sharon Fennix, then incarcerated at Valley State Prison in California’s Central Valley, was transported to Madera Community Hospital for surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prison doctor had recommended that she have non-cancerous growths removed from her uterus and, according to Fennix, she was told that the procedure wouldn’t have lasting impacts and recovery would be quick. She was given a dose of anesthesia, and the last thing she remembers was counting backward while two correctional officers wheeled her gurney down a hallway. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sharon Fennix, a survivor who applied for reparations\"]‘My hope and my dream was always to have a child and be free. To give my son a sister or brother.’[/pullquote]When she woke up from the operation, she said her entire hospital gown was soaked with sweat. She remembers turning to the correctional officer in the room and saying, “I feel like something’s wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Approximately two weeks later, the follow-up visit with the prison doctor who ordered the surgery, Dr. James Heinrich, also left her deeply unsettled. The conversation is carved into her mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was sweating, bleeding and pain,” Fennix recently told KQED. “It plunged me into menopause.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asked Heinrich how long her side effects would last. Fennix said she was told what she was experiencing was normal and the growths on her uterus might return. Puzzled and upset, she wondered why surgery was necessary if the growths could come back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Fennix, she demanded to know what happened to her body during surgery. But the more she probed, the more Heinrich tried to rush her out of his office. Finally, he explained that a surgeon had put a boiling solution in her uterus. Toward the end of the appointment, Fennix said he looked at her file and remarked on the fact that she was serving a life sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She would never get out, she recalled Heinrich saying, so she didn’t need children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was very cunning the way he said that to me,” Fennix said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take nearly a decade for Fennix to fully understand what had happened to her. Before she was released from prison, another doctor explained that she had undergone an endometrial ablation, a procedure that damages the uterine lining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My hope and my dream was always to have a child and be free,” Fennix said. “To give my son a sister or brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But pregnancy would be unlikely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, if a pregnancy occurs after the procedure, “the risks of miscarriage and other problems are greatly increased.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964883\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964883\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person hold a photo of a family in an ornate frame.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharon Fennix holds a photo of her son, Dontay Pickettay, center, his wife and their four children. Pickettay hoped for siblings, she said. “My hope and my dream was always to have a child and be free. To give my son a sister or brother,” Fennix said. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Florence Middleton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I would make sure that [a person is] 110% sure that they do not want children before we discuss an ablation,” said Kavita Shah Arora, division director of General Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and former chair of the ACOG’s national ethics committee. “I think it really boils down to, what informed consent was given? Were patients aware of the impact on future fertility?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fennix said she never provided informed consent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state passed historic legislation in 2021 that provided financial reparations to people who were forcibly or involuntarily sterilized, an advocate from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners thought Fennix had a clear-cut case and persuaded her to apply. Fennix submitted her first application on Jan. 3, 2022, two days after applications opened. Seven months later, she received a denial letter from the state’s Victim Compensation Board, which administers the program. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Kavita Shah Arora, division director, General Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\"]‘I think it really boils down to, what informed consent was given? Were patients aware of the impact on future fertility?’[/pullquote]Fennix, who was 43 when she had the surgery, said she felt insulted by the rejection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You dehumanized me,” she said. “You took my body. How dare you later on tell me that I don’t deserve to be one of the ones that gets reparations for it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the application period for the reparations program \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965672/forced-sterilization-survivors-of-california-prisons-face-reparations-deadline\">winds to a close in December\u003c/a>, Fennix and those who received endometrial ablations are at the heart of a dispute over who should be recognized as a survivor of a shameful chapter in California’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year-long investigation by UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program and KQED found that the compensation board has denied a majority of applicants and repeatedly rejected ablations as a procedure worthy of recognition. The investigation included 30 public records requests, the review of more than 3,000 pages of documents — and interviews with survivors, advocates, medical experts and lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the applicants who volunteered their demographic information, the majority self-identified as Black or African American. Approximately 47% self-identified as male, 40% female and 4% transgender. While reporting this story, KQED spoke with six ablation survivors who were denied reparations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels so clear — based on the spirit of the law, based on the idea of who is perpetuating the harm — that if someone says, ‘I’m not able to have children’ and it’s documented that they had a procedure that limits your ability to have children, that feels like it should be sufficient,” said Jennifer James, an associate professor of sociology at UCSF and member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, or CCWP, who has assisted survivors with their applications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, since 2014, California’s prison health care services have categorized ablations and dozens of other treatments as potentially sterilizing, according to a memo circulated among prison health care leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board declined to respond to specific questions but said in a statement that it has worked “to meet the requirements established in the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fennix appealed her case. That, too, was rejected. She went through the application and appeals process a second time. She was denied at every stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In rejecting Fennix’s first appeal, the board said that ablations don’t qualify as sterilizations under the law and cited the Mayo Clinic website, writing that pregnancy “can and does occur after an endometrial ablation.” The board left out what followed on the website: “The pregnancy is higher risk to you and the baby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next week, Fennix and another formerly incarcerated woman who received an ablation will file a petition in state courts aimed at testing the state’s implementation of the reparations law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her case, Fennix said, reflects a hole in the state’s efforts to compensate survivors of state-sponsored sterilization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not able to reproduce,” she said. “And so, how am I not sterilized?”\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It’s another betrayal’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When legislators passed the reparations law, California became the first and only state in the country to publicly recognize its role in prison sterilizations. Through monetary compensation and memorialization efforts, the state aimed to “raise public awareness about the discriminatory harms” survivors of forced sterilization had faced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state allocated $7.5 million to the two-year program, with $4.5 million earmarked for compensation, $1 million for memorialization and $2 million for program administration and outreach. Each individual whose application is approved receives $15,000. A second and final payment of $20,000, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB143\">signed\u003c/a> into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, will be processed by October 2024. Up to $1 million of any remaining compensation funds could be extended for survivors if legislation is passed in the next few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of Oct. 25, 108 out of 510 applications had been approved. [aside postID=news_11965672 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_0468-1020x659.jpg']Those who championed the legislation estimated that there were roughly 600 living survivors of forced or involuntary sterilization. The actual number of survivors, however, may never be known due to various limitations, such as medical records retention policies. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2013-120.pdf\">2014 state audit\u003c/a> found that at least 794 people in state prisons underwent various procedures that “could have resulted in sterilization” between 2005 and 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who had been forcibly or involuntarily sterilized while incarcerated in state prisons after 1979 or at state-run hospitals, homes and institutions during the eugenics era between 1909 and 1979 could qualify for reparations. But advocates, like CCWP, say that the board is looking for a level of proof that’s unreasonably difficult to meet. For example, they say medical records are more heavily weighted than a personal statement from the survivor, even though the board is required by law to accept multiple forms of documentation to prove that sterilization was more likely than not forcible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It isn’t gray to us because the stories are so convincing about how people were just pressured into signing the consent and didn’t understand what they were signing,” said Diana Block, a legal advocate at CCWP. “But those are all things that are so difficult and challenging to prove.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A significant hurdle has been the lack of consistency and clarity around the compensation board’s definition of sterilization. According to its own guidelines, which KQED obtained through a public records request, the board describes the condition as “the removal of one’s ability to have biological children through medical procedures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the only method medical experts use for sterilization — or what is now called permanent contraception due to the coercive history of sterilization — is a vasectomy or tubal procedure, which cuts, burns, occludes or removes the fallopian tubes. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Carolyn Sufrin, associate professor and OBGYN, Johns Hopkins University\"]‘I believe that people who had this procedure should receive reparations because this is a procedure that, after it, all medical recommendations say, ‘Do not get pregnant after this.’[/pullquote]Medical experts such as Carolyn Sufrin, an associate professor and OBGYN at Johns Hopkins University, also agree that various treatments can profoundly affect fertility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Endometrial ablations, for example, are typically offered when a person is experiencing abnormal uterine bleeding, such as heavy or irregular periods that are not caused by cancer. While experts say an ablation is not clinically defined as sterilization, they contend the procedure should not be done for people who have any desire for future childbearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chances of a pregnancy at all or healthy pregnancy are vastly reduced,” Sufrin said. “I believe that people who had this procedure should receive reparations because this is a procedure that, after it, all medical recommendations say, ‘Do not get pregnant after this.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sufrin referenced a patient brochure for NovaSure, one of the most common mechanisms used to perform an endometrial ablation, which states, “A pregnancy after an ablation is very dangerous for both the mother and the fetus since the uterine lining would not be able to properly support fetal development.” Contraception is recommended after ablation because of the dangers associated with a possible pregnancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the denial of Fennix’s second appeal, the compensation board rejected her application because the legislation did not define “sterilization,” so it relied on the “ordinary plain meaning, which is the permanent inability to produce offspring.” The board cited Black’s Law Dictionary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board also cited a 2014 criminal law that banned procedures that “render an individual permanently incapable of reproducing” except for in a life-or-death situation or when medically necessary. Based on the language of that law, the board said it believed ablations don’t meet the criteria for reparations because legislators “intended sterilization to mean a permanent form of birth control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, who authored the 2014 law in response to the state audit on coercive sterilizations, said she suspected the board was narrowly interpreting the reparations law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If a procedure is so overwhelmingly likely to lead to sterilization, in my opinion, that should entitle someone to reparations,” she said. “But if it means that you have to go back in and identify all of the procedures that could lead to sterilization, then so be it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emails obtained through a public records request show the compensation board staff has also questioned how it determines who should receive compensation: “We went round and round about ablations, and we are not doctors. We always felt there should be more medical evidence to support our decision.” [aside postID=news_11964027 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_0434-1020x659.jpg']Cynthia Chandler, the policy chief for Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and a lawyer who helped draft the reparations law, first heard about ablations in the early 2000s when her legal organization was contacted by a cluster of people who described a “grotesque” procedure that was sometimes performed without anesthesia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Chandler, people reported “the most painful, terrifying experience of their life … and even if some of them were medically necessary, people had no information about what was happening to them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Chandler, ablations were an example of the many procedures used to limit incarcerated people’s fertility by a group of unethical physicians. When a coalition of reparation advocates asked her to help draft the bill, she said that she and her colleagues consciously decided not to define sterilization nor list specific qualifying medical procedures because they knew they would not be able to capture them all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Chandler and her colleagues listed a number of criteria to qualify for compensation. Among the requirements, applicants needed to show that they had been sterilized while incarcerated and that the procedure wasn’t a medical response to a life-or-death situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chandler said that if she had known that the board would define sterilization in a way that wasn’t based on “medical realities,” she would have written the legislation differently.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the state’s one and only opportunity to make amends, and this is how they’re behaving with it,” said Chandler, who also drafted the 2014 law that the compensation board referenced in Fennix’s appeal denial. “I’m horrified at how language that I actually wrote could be so weaponized to remove it so far from its actual meaning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the compensation board has declined to view ablations as a form of sterilization for the purposes of reparations, state officials have been aware of its sterilizing potential for at least a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 19, 2014, three months before the state concluded its audit on forced sterilization in California prisons, Dr. Ricki Barnett, then the deputy medical executive at the California Correctional Health Care Services, sent a memo to top prison health care officials. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Cynthia Chandler, a lawyer who helped draft the reparations law\"]‘This is the state’s one and only opportunity to make amends, and this is how they’re behaving with it. I’m horrified at how language that I actually wrote could be so weaponized to remove it so far from its actual meaning.’[/pullquote]In 2006, the California Department of Corrections division of health care services was put under federal oversight for the state’s 33 institutions after a class-action lawsuit, Plata v. Schwarzenegger. The case brought to light the dire environment of prison medical care in California, which the court ruled was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Twelve of the state’s institutions remain under federal oversight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The subject line of Barnett’s 2014 memo read, “Prospective Review for Procedures that have Sterilization Risks.” What followed was an urgent message: Effective immediately, all of the procedures that [the health care services] deemed to have “the potential for sterilization or diminished capacity for future conception” must go through a heightened level of review. Ablations were included in this list, along with nearly 50 other procedures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CCHCS and CDCR declined to respond to questions about the memo but said in a statement that when they became aware that “non-medically necessary procedures resulting in sterilization were being performed on patients, the procedures were stopped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the memo was issued, the doctor who ordered Fennix’s ablation, Heinrich, signed off on tubal ligations, hysterectomies, the removal of ovaries and endometrial ablations between 2006 and 2012, \u003ca href=\"https://revealnews.org/article/calif-prison-doctor-linked-to-sterilizations-no-stranger-to-controversy-2/\">according to The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>, which first reported the illegal sterilizations. According to state prison medical records obtained by KQED, he ordered at least 80 ablations during that time, as the one performed on Fennix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich told The Center for Investigative Reporting that the state wasn’t paying doctors a significant amount of money for the sterilizations “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children — as they procreated more.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich did not respond to repeated attempts for comment. When a reporter recently knocked on the door of his Castro Valley home, a woman who answered slammed it in the reporter’s face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clairreatha Brown, who is incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, said Heinrich pressured her into an ablation in 2008 when she was 30. He never mentioned that the procedure would impact her fertility, she said, though his secretary told her she would not have children because of the procedure. But Brown said she was made to feel that there were no other options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown’s application for reparations was also denied, catching her off guard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s another betrayal,” Brown said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I’m going to need a second opinion’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Despite Heinrich’s expectations, Fennix was released from prison in 2017. Four years later, she completed her parole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am just so ecstatic with this world and not being in that box,” she said. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sharon Fennix, a survivor who applied for reparations\"]‘These are the times I can cry for the little girl who spent 38 years in prison.’[/pullquote]Fennix, now 60, is the director at a community wellness center and a coordinator at a health care organization for formerly incarcerated people in Northern California. She begins her day at 3 a.m. The morning is the most gratifying time of day because she said she can sit on her porch and watch the sunrise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are the times I can cry for the little girl who spent 38 years in prison,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Fennix was incarcerated, she met Chandler, the attorney who helped write the reparations law, when she had come to the prison to meet with her clients. After Fennix’s first reparations application and appeal were both denied, Chandler introduced her to WookSun Hong, an attorney at the Bay Area Legal Incubator, an organization that supports attorneys who serve underrepresented communities. Hong helped her file a second application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964881\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1334px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964881\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person in a pink blouse looks out of a window.\" width=\"1334\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED.jpg 1334w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-800x1199.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-1020x1529.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharon Fennix, now 60, is the director of a community wellness center and a coordinator at a health care organization for formerly incarcerated people in Northern California. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Florence Middleton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This time, the application included a declaration from Amy Huibonhoa, a board-certified OBGYN who noted the serious risks associated with pregnancy after ablation. Huibonhoa stated that it is “imperative” for informed consent to cover those risks, along with its negative impact on fertility. Fennix was still denied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hong suggested they petition the state court, arguing that the government isn’t adhering to the law. It is slated to be filed next week. According to Hong, the petition is important because he believes the compensation board’s grounds for denials are arbitrary and not based on the law or science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole purpose of the Victim Compensation Board is to compensate the victims,” Hong said. “But it’s almost like they’re acting like insurance adjusters. They are trying to find the excuse to deny the claim.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"WookSun Hong, attorney, Bay Area Legal Incubator\"]‘The whole purpose of the Victim Compensation Board is to compensate the victims. But it’s almost like they’re acting like insurance adjusters. They are trying to find the excuse to deny the claim.’[/pullquote]Continuing to push is Fennix’s way of demanding that the board begin to fully comprehend the extent of the damage that was done to people like her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m hoping [the compensation board] realizes that they sterilized a lot of us and that they should give people options, not just do what they want to do with our bodies,” she said. “It’s not about the money more than it is about the fact that these people don’t want to take accountability, and they don’t want to say that they actually ruined my body based on a procedure that didn’t have to happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fennix said her body continues to feel off-kilter and the symptoms she experienced after having an ablation have largely remained the same. Now, anytime she needs to have a procedure done, she takes extra time and caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m going to ask a thousand questions,” she said. “I’m going to need a second opinion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Cayla Mihalovich is a reporter with the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>More information on how to apply for compensation for involuntary sterilization can be found at the California Victim Compensation Board \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://victims.ca.gov/for-victims/fiscp/#How_to_apply\">\u003cem>website\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Applications are available in English and Spanish. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Anyone needing assistance with the application can call the compensation board’s toll-free helpline at 1-800-777-9229 from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday-Friday.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"As of Oct. 25, 70% of applicants were denied reparations. Who qualifies as a survivor in this dark chapter of California's history?","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1698854476,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":72,"wordCount":3810},"headData":{"title":"Survivors from California’s Period of Forced Sterilization Denied Reparations | KQED","description":"As of Oct. 25, 70% of applicants were denied reparations. Who qualifies as a survivor in this dark chapter of California's history?","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://caylamihalovich.com/\">Cayla Mihalovich\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11965926/survivors-of-californias-forced-sterilization-denied-reparations","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In March 2006, Sharon Fennix, then incarcerated at Valley State Prison in California’s Central Valley, was transported to Madera Community Hospital for surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prison doctor had recommended that she have non-cancerous growths removed from her uterus and, according to Fennix, she was told that the procedure wouldn’t have lasting impacts and recovery would be quick. She was given a dose of anesthesia, and the last thing she remembers was counting backward while two correctional officers wheeled her gurney down a hallway. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘My hope and my dream was always to have a child and be free. To give my son a sister or brother.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Sharon Fennix, a survivor who applied for reparations","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When she woke up from the operation, she said her entire hospital gown was soaked with sweat. She remembers turning to the correctional officer in the room and saying, “I feel like something’s wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Approximately two weeks later, the follow-up visit with the prison doctor who ordered the surgery, Dr. James Heinrich, also left her deeply unsettled. The conversation is carved into her mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was sweating, bleeding and pain,” Fennix recently told KQED. “It plunged me into menopause.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asked Heinrich how long her side effects would last. Fennix said she was told what she was experiencing was normal and the growths on her uterus might return. Puzzled and upset, she wondered why surgery was necessary if the growths could come back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Fennix, she demanded to know what happened to her body during surgery. But the more she probed, the more Heinrich tried to rush her out of his office. Finally, he explained that a surgeon had put a boiling solution in her uterus. Toward the end of the appointment, Fennix said he looked at her file and remarked on the fact that she was serving a life sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She would never get out, she recalled Heinrich saying, so she didn’t need children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was very cunning the way he said that to me,” Fennix said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would take nearly a decade for Fennix to fully understand what had happened to her. Before she was released from prison, another doctor explained that she had undergone an endometrial ablation, a procedure that damages the uterine lining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My hope and my dream was always to have a child and be free,” Fennix said. “To give my son a sister or brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But pregnancy would be unlikely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, if a pregnancy occurs after the procedure, “the risks of miscarriage and other problems are greatly increased.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964883\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964883\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person hold a photo of a family in an ornate frame.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/009_Sharon_230929_125-KQED-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharon Fennix holds a photo of her son, Dontay Pickettay, center, his wife and their four children. Pickettay hoped for siblings, she said. “My hope and my dream was always to have a child and be free. To give my son a sister or brother,” Fennix said. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Florence Middleton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I would make sure that [a person is] 110% sure that they do not want children before we discuss an ablation,” said Kavita Shah Arora, division director of General Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and former chair of the ACOG’s national ethics committee. “I think it really boils down to, what informed consent was given? Were patients aware of the impact on future fertility?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fennix said she never provided informed consent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state passed historic legislation in 2021 that provided financial reparations to people who were forcibly or involuntarily sterilized, an advocate from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners thought Fennix had a clear-cut case and persuaded her to apply. Fennix submitted her first application on Jan. 3, 2022, two days after applications opened. Seven months later, she received a denial letter from the state’s Victim Compensation Board, which administers the program. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘I think it really boils down to, what informed consent was given? Were patients aware of the impact on future fertility?’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Kavita Shah Arora, division director, General Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Fennix, who was 43 when she had the surgery, said she felt insulted by the rejection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You dehumanized me,” she said. “You took my body. How dare you later on tell me that I don’t deserve to be one of the ones that gets reparations for it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the application period for the reparations program \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11965672/forced-sterilization-survivors-of-california-prisons-face-reparations-deadline\">winds to a close in December\u003c/a>, Fennix and those who received endometrial ablations are at the heart of a dispute over who should be recognized as a survivor of a shameful chapter in California’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year-long investigation by UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program and KQED found that the compensation board has denied a majority of applicants and repeatedly rejected ablations as a procedure worthy of recognition. The investigation included 30 public records requests, the review of more than 3,000 pages of documents — and interviews with survivors, advocates, medical experts and lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the applicants who volunteered their demographic information, the majority self-identified as Black or African American. Approximately 47% self-identified as male, 40% female and 4% transgender. While reporting this story, KQED spoke with six ablation survivors who were denied reparations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels so clear — based on the spirit of the law, based on the idea of who is perpetuating the harm — that if someone says, ‘I’m not able to have children’ and it’s documented that they had a procedure that limits your ability to have children, that feels like it should be sufficient,” said Jennifer James, an associate professor of sociology at UCSF and member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, or CCWP, who has assisted survivors with their applications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, since 2014, California’s prison health care services have categorized ablations and dozens of other treatments as potentially sterilizing, according to a memo circulated among prison health care leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board declined to respond to specific questions but said in a statement that it has worked “to meet the requirements established in the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fennix appealed her case. That, too, was rejected. She went through the application and appeals process a second time. She was denied at every stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In rejecting Fennix’s first appeal, the board said that ablations don’t qualify as sterilizations under the law and cited the Mayo Clinic website, writing that pregnancy “can and does occur after an endometrial ablation.” The board left out what followed on the website: “The pregnancy is higher risk to you and the baby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next week, Fennix and another formerly incarcerated woman who received an ablation will file a petition in state courts aimed at testing the state’s implementation of the reparations law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her case, Fennix said, reflects a hole in the state’s efforts to compensate survivors of state-sponsored sterilization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not able to reproduce,” she said. “And so, how am I not sterilized?”\u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It’s another betrayal’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When legislators passed the reparations law, California became the first and only state in the country to publicly recognize its role in prison sterilizations. Through monetary compensation and memorialization efforts, the state aimed to “raise public awareness about the discriminatory harms” survivors of forced sterilization had faced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state allocated $7.5 million to the two-year program, with $4.5 million earmarked for compensation, $1 million for memorialization and $2 million for program administration and outreach. Each individual whose application is approved receives $15,000. A second and final payment of $20,000, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB143\">signed\u003c/a> into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, will be processed by October 2024. Up to $1 million of any remaining compensation funds could be extended for survivors if legislation is passed in the next few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of Oct. 25, 108 out of 510 applications had been approved. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11965672","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_0468-1020x659.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Those who championed the legislation estimated that there were roughly 600 living survivors of forced or involuntary sterilization. The actual number of survivors, however, may never be known due to various limitations, such as medical records retention policies. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2013-120.pdf\">2014 state audit\u003c/a> found that at least 794 people in state prisons underwent various procedures that “could have resulted in sterilization” between 2005 and 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who had been forcibly or involuntarily sterilized while incarcerated in state prisons after 1979 or at state-run hospitals, homes and institutions during the eugenics era between 1909 and 1979 could qualify for reparations. But advocates, like CCWP, say that the board is looking for a level of proof that’s unreasonably difficult to meet. For example, they say medical records are more heavily weighted than a personal statement from the survivor, even though the board is required by law to accept multiple forms of documentation to prove that sterilization was more likely than not forcible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It isn’t gray to us because the stories are so convincing about how people were just pressured into signing the consent and didn’t understand what they were signing,” said Diana Block, a legal advocate at CCWP. “But those are all things that are so difficult and challenging to prove.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A significant hurdle has been the lack of consistency and clarity around the compensation board’s definition of sterilization. According to its own guidelines, which KQED obtained through a public records request, the board describes the condition as “the removal of one’s ability to have biological children through medical procedures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the only method medical experts use for sterilization — or what is now called permanent contraception due to the coercive history of sterilization — is a vasectomy or tubal procedure, which cuts, burns, occludes or removes the fallopian tubes. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘I believe that people who had this procedure should receive reparations because this is a procedure that, after it, all medical recommendations say, ‘Do not get pregnant after this.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Carolyn Sufrin, associate professor and OBGYN, Johns Hopkins University","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Medical experts such as Carolyn Sufrin, an associate professor and OBGYN at Johns Hopkins University, also agree that various treatments can profoundly affect fertility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Endometrial ablations, for example, are typically offered when a person is experiencing abnormal uterine bleeding, such as heavy or irregular periods that are not caused by cancer. While experts say an ablation is not clinically defined as sterilization, they contend the procedure should not be done for people who have any desire for future childbearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chances of a pregnancy at all or healthy pregnancy are vastly reduced,” Sufrin said. “I believe that people who had this procedure should receive reparations because this is a procedure that, after it, all medical recommendations say, ‘Do not get pregnant after this.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sufrin referenced a patient brochure for NovaSure, one of the most common mechanisms used to perform an endometrial ablation, which states, “A pregnancy after an ablation is very dangerous for both the mother and the fetus since the uterine lining would not be able to properly support fetal development.” Contraception is recommended after ablation because of the dangers associated with a possible pregnancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the denial of Fennix’s second appeal, the compensation board rejected her application because the legislation did not define “sterilization,” so it relied on the “ordinary plain meaning, which is the permanent inability to produce offspring.” The board cited Black’s Law Dictionary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board also cited a 2014 criminal law that banned procedures that “render an individual permanently incapable of reproducing” except for in a life-or-death situation or when medically necessary. Based on the language of that law, the board said it believed ablations don’t meet the criteria for reparations because legislators “intended sterilization to mean a permanent form of birth control.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, who authored the 2014 law in response to the state audit on coercive sterilizations, said she suspected the board was narrowly interpreting the reparations law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If a procedure is so overwhelmingly likely to lead to sterilization, in my opinion, that should entitle someone to reparations,” she said. “But if it means that you have to go back in and identify all of the procedures that could lead to sterilization, then so be it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emails obtained through a public records request show the compensation board staff has also questioned how it determines who should receive compensation: “We went round and round about ablations, and we are not doctors. We always felt there should be more medical evidence to support our decision.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11964027","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_0434-1020x659.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cynthia Chandler, the policy chief for Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and a lawyer who helped draft the reparations law, first heard about ablations in the early 2000s when her legal organization was contacted by a cluster of people who described a “grotesque” procedure that was sometimes performed without anesthesia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Chandler, people reported “the most painful, terrifying experience of their life … and even if some of them were medically necessary, people had no information about what was happening to them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Chandler, ablations were an example of the many procedures used to limit incarcerated people’s fertility by a group of unethical physicians. When a coalition of reparation advocates asked her to help draft the bill, she said that she and her colleagues consciously decided not to define sterilization nor list specific qualifying medical procedures because they knew they would not be able to capture them all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Chandler and her colleagues listed a number of criteria to qualify for compensation. Among the requirements, applicants needed to show that they had been sterilized while incarcerated and that the procedure wasn’t a medical response to a life-or-death situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chandler said that if she had known that the board would define sterilization in a way that wasn’t based on “medical realities,” she would have written the legislation differently.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the state’s one and only opportunity to make amends, and this is how they’re behaving with it,” said Chandler, who also drafted the 2014 law that the compensation board referenced in Fennix’s appeal denial. “I’m horrified at how language that I actually wrote could be so weaponized to remove it so far from its actual meaning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the compensation board has declined to view ablations as a form of sterilization for the purposes of reparations, state officials have been aware of its sterilizing potential for at least a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 19, 2014, three months before the state concluded its audit on forced sterilization in California prisons, Dr. Ricki Barnett, then the deputy medical executive at the California Correctional Health Care Services, sent a memo to top prison health care officials. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘This is the state’s one and only opportunity to make amends, and this is how they’re behaving with it. I’m horrified at how language that I actually wrote could be so weaponized to remove it so far from its actual meaning.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Cynthia Chandler, a lawyer who helped draft the reparations law","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In 2006, the California Department of Corrections division of health care services was put under federal oversight for the state’s 33 institutions after a class-action lawsuit, Plata v. Schwarzenegger. The case brought to light the dire environment of prison medical care in California, which the court ruled was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Twelve of the state’s institutions remain under federal oversight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The subject line of Barnett’s 2014 memo read, “Prospective Review for Procedures that have Sterilization Risks.” What followed was an urgent message: Effective immediately, all of the procedures that [the health care services] deemed to have “the potential for sterilization or diminished capacity for future conception” must go through a heightened level of review. Ablations were included in this list, along with nearly 50 other procedures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CCHCS and CDCR declined to respond to questions about the memo but said in a statement that when they became aware that “non-medically necessary procedures resulting in sterilization were being performed on patients, the procedures were stopped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the memo was issued, the doctor who ordered Fennix’s ablation, Heinrich, signed off on tubal ligations, hysterectomies, the removal of ovaries and endometrial ablations between 2006 and 2012, \u003ca href=\"https://revealnews.org/article/calif-prison-doctor-linked-to-sterilizations-no-stranger-to-controversy-2/\">according to The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>, which first reported the illegal sterilizations. According to state prison medical records obtained by KQED, he ordered at least 80 ablations during that time, as the one performed on Fennix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich told The Center for Investigative Reporting that the state wasn’t paying doctors a significant amount of money for the sterilizations “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children — as they procreated more.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heinrich did not respond to repeated attempts for comment. When a reporter recently knocked on the door of his Castro Valley home, a woman who answered slammed it in the reporter’s face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clairreatha Brown, who is incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, said Heinrich pressured her into an ablation in 2008 when she was 30. He never mentioned that the procedure would impact her fertility, she said, though his secretary told her she would not have children because of the procedure. But Brown said she was made to feel that there were no other options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown’s application for reparations was also denied, catching her off guard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s another betrayal,” Brown said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘I’m going to need a second opinion’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Despite Heinrich’s expectations, Fennix was released from prison in 2017. Four years later, she completed her parole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am just so ecstatic with this world and not being in that box,” she said. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘These are the times I can cry for the little girl who spent 38 years in prison.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Sharon Fennix, a survivor who applied for reparations","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Fennix, now 60, is the director at a community wellness center and a coordinator at a health care organization for formerly incarcerated people in Northern California. She begins her day at 3 a.m. The morning is the most gratifying time of day because she said she can sit on her porch and watch the sunrise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are the times I can cry for the little girl who spent 38 years in prison,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Fennix was incarcerated, she met Chandler, the attorney who helped write the reparations law, when she had come to the prison to meet with her clients. After Fennix’s first reparations application and appeal were both denied, Chandler introduced her to WookSun Hong, an attorney at the Bay Area Legal Incubator, an organization that supports attorneys who serve underrepresented communities. Hong helped her file a second application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964881\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1334px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964881\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person in a pink blouse looks out of a window.\" width=\"1334\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED.jpg 1334w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-800x1199.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-1020x1529.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/003_Sharon_230929_056-KQED-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1334px) 100vw, 1334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharon Fennix, now 60, is the director of a community wellness center and a coordinator at a health care organization for formerly incarcerated people in Northern California. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Florence Middleton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This time, the application included a declaration from Amy Huibonhoa, a board-certified OBGYN who noted the serious risks associated with pregnancy after ablation. Huibonhoa stated that it is “imperative” for informed consent to cover those risks, along with its negative impact on fertility. Fennix was still denied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hong suggested they petition the state court, arguing that the government isn’t adhering to the law. It is slated to be filed next week. According to Hong, the petition is important because he believes the compensation board’s grounds for denials are arbitrary and not based on the law or science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole purpose of the Victim Compensation Board is to compensate the victims,” Hong said. “But it’s almost like they’re acting like insurance adjusters. They are trying to find the excuse to deny the claim.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘The whole purpose of the Victim Compensation Board is to compensate the victims. But it’s almost like they’re acting like insurance adjusters. They are trying to find the excuse to deny the claim.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"WookSun Hong, attorney, Bay Area Legal Incubator","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Continuing to push is Fennix’s way of demanding that the board begin to fully comprehend the extent of the damage that was done to people like her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m hoping [the compensation board] realizes that they sterilized a lot of us and that they should give people options, not just do what they want to do with our bodies,” she said. “It’s not about the money more than it is about the fact that these people don’t want to take accountability, and they don’t want to say that they actually ruined my body based on a procedure that didn’t have to happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fennix said her body continues to feel off-kilter and the symptoms she experienced after having an ablation have largely remained the same. Now, anytime she needs to have a procedure done, she takes extra time and caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m going to ask a thousand questions,” she said. “I’m going to need a second opinion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Cayla Mihalovich is a reporter with the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>More information on how to apply for compensation for involuntary sterilization can be found at the California Victim Compensation Board \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://victims.ca.gov/for-victims/fiscp/#How_to_apply\">\u003cem>website\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Applications are available in English and Spanish. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Anyone needing assistance with the application can call the compensation board’s toll-free helpline at 1-800-777-9229 from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday-Friday.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11965926/survivors-of-californias-forced-sterilization-denied-reparations","authors":["byline_news_11965926"],"categories":["news_6188","news_8"],"tags":["news_18538","news_32222","news_616","news_3149","news_30652","news_27626","news_32261","news_32212","news_30638","news_2923","news_32043"],"featImg":"news_11964882","label":"news"},"news_11964027":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11964027","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11964027","score":null,"sort":[1697209258000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-prisons-fail-to-uphold-transgender-rights-despite-state-law","title":"California Prisons Fail to Uphold Transgender Rights Despite State Law","publishDate":1697209258,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Prisons Fail to Uphold Transgender Rights Despite State Law | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":26731,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>Warning: There are descriptions of physical and sexual violence in this piece. Also, where legal names and chosen names differ, we’re using chosen names.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]S[/dropcap]yiaah Skylit had been stuck in solitary confinement at a maximum-security men’s prison for months when, in the fall of 2020, she got the news that gave her hope: Gov. Gavin Newsom had signed the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB132\">Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the law requires California prison staff to use the chosen pronouns of incarcerated people who are intersex or identify as nonbinary or transgender, as Skylit does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It allows those incarcerated people to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/prea/sb-132-faqs/\">select a gender preference for the guards who search them\u003c/a>. Most significantly, it mandates that prison officials, under most circumstances, honor requests to be housed at the type of facility — male or female — that aligns with the incarcerated person’s gender identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For six years, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation bounced Skylit from one men’s prison to another. At each, safety proved elusive. By 2020, she was isolated in a cell for her own protection after brutal attacks by people she was incarcerated with and, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991903-syiaahkvsp2ndamendedcomplaint2022-03-03\">a lawsuit alleges (PDF)\u003c/a>, by guards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prospect of serving out her remaining sentence in a women’s facility seemed nothing short of a miracle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me, what it felt like was a sanctuary,” she said in one of several dozen interviews with KQED over the course of a year. “A place to be who you were meant to be without any retaliation, without any violence, without any judgment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades have passed since simply \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917624/how-a-young-gay-man-survived-one-of-the-darkest-eras-in-california-queer-history\">being LGBTQ+ was considered a crime and a mental illness\u003c/a>. But bias and marginalization still lead to high rates of criminalization, especially for \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/NTDS_Report.pdf\">Black trans women (PDF)\u003c/a> like Skylit. Once incarcerated, harsh prison conditions take a serious toll on mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/0/1149/files/2013/06/BulletinVol2Issue2.pdf\">Studies (PDF)\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf\">surveys (PDF)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/pdca15.pdf\">federal data (PDF)\u003c/a> show that trans women held in men’s prisons are sexually and physically assaulted at rates as much as 13 times higher than cisgender men. When they report assaults or fears for their safety, they’re often met with \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991938-tni-coalition-letter-to-governor-newsom-71723pdf-2\">staff retaliation (PDF)\u003c/a>. It’s not uncommon for trans women to harm themselves — just to get to the safety of a prison mental health bed. Skylit had lived that, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison\"]‘For me, what it felt like was a sanctuary. A place to be who you were meant to be without any retaliation, without any violence, without any judgment.’[/pullquote]The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act promised an end to those nightmares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No more having to hide in fear,” Skylit said. “No more having to be quiet about who I really am. I was excited. I couldn’t wait.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story is a result of a year-long investigation into the effectiveness of the legislation that aimed to reduce the trauma of transgender women in California’s prisons. KQED’s reporters interviewed a dozen incarcerated people and reviewed data along with several hundred pages of prison grievances, disciplinary records and legal filings. The reporting revealed that trans women like Skylit and many others transferred to a women’s prison under the new law have not found the sanctuary they were seeking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Skylit, the nightmares have only gotten worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Living with secrets\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Skylit grew up in Compton. When she was 5, she and her siblings entered the foster care system after their mother suffered a mental health break. When Skylit was 14, her mother died by apparent suicide, and the following year, she said, “I tried to kill myself by running in front of a moving train.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was physically uninjured but sent to a psychiatric hospital. It wouldn’t be the last time she’d tried to take her own life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964099\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964099\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-800x949.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"949\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-800x949.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-1020x1210.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-160x190.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-1295x1536.jpg 1295w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED.jpg 1686w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In August 2020, as Syiaah Skylit sat in solitary confinement at Kern Valley State Prison for her own protection, transgender advocates launched a Change.org campaign urging clemency for her. She helped with the design of the artwork. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Syiaah Skylit, Micah Bazant and Freddie Francis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Skylit is a slight 5 feet, 5 inches tall with a big, dimpled smile. As a teen and living as a boy, she was bullied for being a flashy dresser, for the way she carried herself. She experimented with a gay relationship, but it left her feeling “confused.” The adults in her life were religious and viewed LGBTQ+ people as sinners. Her brothers were gang members. She did what they asked of her, she said, because “I didn’t want to look weak.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t come out and be myself around people like my family and my friends that I grew up with,” Skylit said. “I grew up in a hard-ass neighborhood. That ain’t about to fly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she harbored a secret she never shared with her brothers, one even she didn’t fully comprehend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would dress up. I would put makeup on. All I understood as a person was, ‘Hey, I like this,’” she said. “So if I like this, why is it so bad? Am I a bad person?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A stint in juvenile detention didn’t stop Skylit from setting her sights on a bright future. She finished high school on time, enrolled in community college, worked multiple jobs and, for a while, paid her rent. But anxiety, depression and drug use interrupted her stability. She’d already been homeless once when, facing eviction in 2012, she and a friend robbed a convenience store in San Bernardino County. It yielded little, so they robbed a Los Angeles County jewelry store — and got caught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 22, Skylit was facing criminal trials in both counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison\"]‘I couldn’t come out and be myself around people like my family and my friends that I grew up with. I grew up in a hard-ass neighborhood. That ain’t about to fly.’[/pullquote]Her first stop was a San Bernardino County jail, where she came out as gay to get to the relative safety of what was then called the “alternative lifestyles tank.” According to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23999484-syiaah2015sanbernardinocolawsuit\">class-action lawsuit (DOC)\u003c/a>, the conditions were distressing: discrimination by staff and denial of basic services. Skylit, under her legal name, was among the named plaintiffs. A settlement led to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24002812-sanbernardinoinjunctiverelief\">significant reforms (DOC)\u003c/a>. It was in that jail, she said, where she first learned to advocate for her rights, even in the face of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also where she first encountered openly transgender women and was blown away by their courage and joyful confidence. In their midst, Skylit said, she at last felt free of judgment, open to self-acceptance. Her next stop — a stint in the segregated LGBTQ+ tank at the Los Angeles County jail — only reinforced those feelings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s when I got a taste of all the ‘T’ and I was just living it,” she said of the ‘T’ for Transgender in the alphabet soup of LGBTQ+. “It was like discovering myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was sentenced to 16 years in prison. It may seem paradoxical, but incarceration gave Skylit breathing room to explore her gender identity. In court, she apologized to her robbery victims. Then, she made a promise to herself to use “every second, every minute” of her time inside “to really find out who I am. I mean, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I felt I had.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit entered California’s prison system for men in December 2015. Soon, she chose her new name. “Syiaah” is an acronym — sexy, young, intelligent, ambitious, authentic and heroic. She picked “Sky” as “an inspiration to reach higher limits.” And “lit” is a nod to her hip-hop Compton roots “to be vibrant, live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Put it together, it’s ‘I keep the sky lit’,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In keeping with the up-to-date \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24002874-ama-medical-spectrum-of-gender-d-295312\">medical (DOC)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients\">psychiatric\u003c/a> understanding of gender identity, the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act doesn’t require incarcerated people to be on hormone replacement therapy or to be interested in gender-affirming surgeries to be transferred to housing that aligns with their sense of safety. During Skylit’s early years in prison, that wasn’t the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11957664 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/110822-KernValleyPrison-LV_CM_04-1020x680.jpg']The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation \u003cem>did\u003c/em> consider such transfer requests. The federal Prison Rape Elimination Act had since 2012 \u003ca href=\"https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/frequently-asked-questions/does-policy-houses-transgender-or-intersex-inmates-based-exclusively\">forbidden\u003c/a> the department from housing prisoners based solely on external genital anatomy. But the CDCR did it on a case-by-case basis, and the tiny number granted all happened to be for trans women who’d had gender-affirming genital surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everybody wants that. Gender identity and gender transition are deeply personal. Skylit’s records show she declared her transgender identity on a special CDCR form about a year after arrival — and soon after started \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018578-skylit-2019-housing-complaint\">asking to be transferred to a women’s prison (DOC)\u003c/a>. That went nowhere. So Skylit worked to stay true to her transition, even as she was funneled through a series of men’s prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I tapped into it, despite the long time I was facing, I was happy,” she said. “But that happiness turned into survival real fast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Met by violence\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Almost immediately, Skylit’s gender identity and small stature made her a target. On several occasions, she said, correctional officers placed her in cells with large men who specifically requested her and then pressured her for sex. When she filed grievances in an attempt to switch cells or responded to physical assaults by fighting, she said, staff responded with Rule Violation Reports, known as RVRs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more I would push back,” she said, “the more they would attack me with RVRs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Skylit pressed on. She requested hormone replacement therapy, and by the time those treatments started, in 2018, she’d been moved to Mule Creek State Prison near the small Sierra foothills town of Ione. It’s one of a dozen or so facilities in the state designated as “transgender hubs.” That means, medical and mental services for trans prisoners are concentrated there, as are prison commissary items unavailable elsewhere, such as sports bras and makeup for trans women, and boxer shorts for trans men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit could finally stop MacGyvering her fashion looks. She could style her hair, wear makeup and earrings. On the prison yard, she said she found a sense of belonging with her trans sisters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were out there,” she said. “Having fun, protecting each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even at men’s prisons designated as transgender hubs, trans women were mixed with cisgender men in common areas and their assigned cells. The truer Skylit felt to herself, she said, the greater the danger she experienced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah, it’s OK to come out and you got a nice little outfit on, but guess what you just did?” she said. “You just called attention to yourself and now you have certain people who are making sexual advances towards you, and some of them don’t stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of her trans sisters exchanged sex for safety. But even that was no guarantee of safety. Skylit wept while recounting how a close friend staggered out of her cell “with a huge gash in her skull, busted lip, trying to get out of the room that she placed herself in because she wanted to be \u003cem>herself\u003c/em>. And she couldn’t complain to the officers, because they’re not gonna do anything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison\"]‘Either I’m gonna be who I wanna be or I’m gonna end up dead. Girl, I can’t be dead and be myself at the same time.’[/pullquote]So Skylit found herself facing a soul-crushing choice between her safety and her identity. Skylit drew a line against assault. That meant more fights and more disciplinary write-ups. The hormone treatments caused muscle weakness, so she made another compromise. She began stopping and starting the medications depending on the danger she was facing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Either I’m gonna be who I wanna be or I’m gonna end up dead,” she said. “Girl, I can’t be dead and be myself at the same time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a survival strategy it made sense, but abruptly going on and off hormones brings on acute mood swings. It also heightens \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis\">gender dysphoria\u003c/a>, a mental health diagnosis associated with distress a person can feel at being a gender other than the one assigned at birth. Skylit had experienced that for most of her life, as she hid her true gender identity, and it caused depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Skylit juggled these stressors, prison officials transferred her again — this time to Kern Valley State Prison, a maximum-security facility in the Central Valley town of Delano that houses some of the state’s most violent offenders. Among them, transgender advocates \u003ca href=\"https://prisonhealth.news/2021/10/29/lgbtq-prison-testimonies-dakota-rose-in-california/\">note\u003c/a>, are gang members known to target LGBTQ+ people in prisons. That’s where she \u003ca href=\"https://sfbayview.com/2021/05/trans-woman-seeks-release-from-cdcr-custody-after-attacks/\">hit a new low\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Skylit and a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991903-syiaahkvsp2ndamendedcomplaint2022-03-03\">lawsuit filed on her behalf (DOC),\u003c/a> she was assaulted twice by incarcerated men and witnessed gruesome attacks on two other trans women. Terrified, she says she asked to speak to a sergeant about her safety concerns. Instead, she alleges, two officers followed her into her cell. One pulled down her pants, ran a baton along her bottom and threatened to rape her with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I’m just sitting there like this can’t be real,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11954055 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/230626-CALIFORNIA-PRISONERS-AP-RP-KQED-1020x735.jpg']That night, she drank from a bottle of laundry detergent in a desperate attempt to get sent to a mental health crisis unit. An officer stripped her of her clothes and left her lying naked in her cell next to the empty bottle. The next day, an officer pepper sprayed her at close range. Others beat her with batons. CDCR does not comment on active litigation. In legal filings, the named officers have denied wrongdoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, Skylit said, a sergeant agreed to isolate her for her protection. That’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.vera.org/news/violence-torture-and-isolation-what-its-like-to-be-trans-in-prison\">a common fate for trans women\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s sad to be thankful for complete solitary confinement, isolation,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She would stay there for seven months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit had sought help from various attorneys. One responded. Jen Orthwein is a forensic psychologist who once treated transgender clients behind prison walls. They later co-founded a queer-owned law firm to challenge the harsh conditions they’d witnessed. Orthwein worked with other transgender advocates to launch a \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/gavin-newsom-call-for-the-immediate-release-of-syiaah-skylit-from-cdcr-custody-blacktranslivesmatter?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=cc830240-3ea3-11e9-a4df-e5579d49cec9\">petition\u003c/a> for clemency on Skylit’s behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, with colored pencils and paper, Skylit got to work crafting a series of illustrated \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018571-its-a-colorful-world-by-syiaah-skylit\">children’s books (DOC)\u003c/a> featuring gender-non-conforming characters. Among them is a rainbow-colored kid named Unique, who is fully embraced by loving parents but bullied on the playground for delighting in toys conventionally meant for both boys and girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project helped Skylit reimagine her traumatic past. She also hoped her books might make their way into the world and change the mindset of young readers “to where they’re not growing into hatred, but actually out of it.” She finished two, got started on a third. And that’s where she was when Orthewin gave her the good news. The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act was state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964104\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Scans of two pages of drawing and text from a hand written book.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Excerpts from ‘It’s a Colorful World.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Syiaah Skylit)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It was like a prayer had been answered,” Skylit said. “Like, ‘This is it!’ This is going to be the beginning of Syiaah Skylit at her best, at completely being herself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>New perils\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wiener’s bill was years in the making, and he’s quick to note that top CDCR officials were on board. They welcomed advocates to join a working group to brainstorm solutions to unsafe conditions and sought input directly from incarcerated transgender people. The Office of Inspector General detailed in \u003ca href=\"https://www.oig.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Special-Review-Incarcerated-Transgender-Nonbinary-Intersex-Individuals.pdf\">a 2020 report (PDF)\u003c/a> the painful responses to those surveys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laws in \u003ca href=\"https://www.acluct.org/en/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-trans-people-who-are-incarcerated-connecticut\">Connecticut\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991974-952-management-of-gender-diverse-and-intersex-inmates-final-version\">Rhode Island (DOC)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lgbtqbar.org/bar-news/tiproject/ma/\">Massachusetts\u003c/a> call for similar reforms, while \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu-nj.org/en/press-releases/settlement-nj-civil-rights-suit-promises-necessary-reform-affirming-transgender\">New Jersey\u003c/a> has made comparable policy changes in response to litigation. But advocates who helped craft California’s law say it is the most expansive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener said in an interview that he knew at the start that the magnitude of changes mandated by the law required patience and that it would take time to implement. More recently, though, he’s grown deeply concerned about the way his legislation has played out on the ground. Because, he said, even with senior CDCR management on board, “the culture in the individual prisons is just so challenging that it doesn’t translate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964100\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-800x539.jpg\" alt='A group of people, most wearing the same uniform of blue shirts and pants, stand together holding signs and joined by a person wearing a suit helping to hold a banner reading \"trans lives matter.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"539\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-800x539.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-1020x687.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-160x108.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-1536x1035.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-1920x1294.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) attends CDCR’s first Transgender Remembrance Day in 2019, organized jointly by trans and cisgender incarcerated people. Wiener had already authored the bill that would become the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, with buy-in from top CDCR officials. \u003ccite>(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officials chose the Central California Women’s Facility, or CCWF, in Chowchilla as the prison where all the trans women would go first. It’s a facility with a \u003ca href=\"https://prisonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/16.08.18-Prison-Law-Office-report-on-CCWF.pdf\">troubled history (PDF)\u003c/a> when it comes to staff accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of a dozen CCWF prisoners interviewed by KQED, all said they heard correctional staff express hostility to the new law even before the transfers began, warning the cisgender population that fakers and sexual predators were heading their way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tasha Brown, a cisgender woman, said she heard guards say, “The doors were going to be open for people to come in to violate us, to rape us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomas Green, a transgender man, said he heard guards “telling women here that the trans women were men and that they were gonna get raped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11936438 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/1920px-CentralCaliforniaWomensFacility-1020x816.jpeg']Alexanne Danis, a cisgender woman, said she heard a lieutenant openly state that the transfers “don’t belong here, that they have to leave.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officers and fellow cisgender incarcerated people, Danis said, also spoke about driving the new transfers out, “saying that they were gonna stage stuff and that they were gonna make it sound worse than it was if anything did happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michelle Calvin was one of the first transgender women to arrive at CCWF. She helped work on Wiener’s legislation and has since transferred to the lower-security California Institution for Women. She heard the characterizations by staff that trans women were “gonna come over here and rape y’all and beat y’all up and take y’all stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power to reverse the law, she heard officers tell incarcerated people, rested in their hands: “Take your house back. Take your prison back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates who helped craft the law were well aware of this toxic environment. They say they pressed officials to allow them to hold a town hall at the women’s prison to defuse these narratives before the transfers began. It never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the trans women who began arriving in the first half of 2021 had no idea what they were stepping into.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orthwein, Skylit’s attorney, was part of the working group that informed the new law and said key CDCR decisions around implementation proved harmful. The new arrivals were held in segregation for their first month. There, they were issued new prison identification numbers beginning with a distinctive two-letter combination. Instead of “some semblance of privacy about their transgender status,” which advocates had pressed for, this immediately outed them, feeding hostility and rejection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CCWF houses people in dorms, as many as eight to a room. Without exception, the trans women interviewed by KQED said they have been refused entry to dorms by prisoners who viewed them as “men.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Skylit’s first day in the general population, in mid-July 2021, guards started writing her up for minor violations. Within a month, she was in solitary confinement, accused of having a consensual relationship with her cisgender female bunkmate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sex is against prison rules systemwide, but every CCWF prisoner interviewed for this piece said it’s extremely common, especially in women’s prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Tomas Green, transgender man in California prison\"]‘At the end of the day, we’re humans. I’m not saying every relationship in here is just peachy perfect, no. You have a lot of relationships in here that are toxic — fight, argue. But that’s life in the free world.’[/pullquote]“Yes, you’re not supposed to have sex but it happens. It’s natural and there’s nothing that’s gonna stop it from happening,” said Giovanni Gonzales, a transgender man who runs a group to educate peers about gender identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Relationships form quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of the day, we’re humans,” Green said. “I’m not saying every relationship in here is just peachy perfect, no. You have a lot of relationships in here that are toxic — fight, argue. But that’s life in the free world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, while sex and intimacy may be universal, punishment is not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzales and Green said staff often turn a blind eye to cisgender women who couple up, especially if they express their gender in stereotypically feminine ways. If a transgender man is caught being amorous, they said, a rule violation is more likely. As for the trans women who were just arriving at CCWF, a harsher set of unwritten rules seemed to apply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One cisgender couple in Skylit’s dorm had been having regular sex without consequence, she said. As Skylit was handcuffed and written up for her relationship, she asked an officer why she was going to isolation and the bunkmate wasn’t. He replied, “Because you’re a man and she’s a woman.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a hearing to discuss her situation, records show that Acting Warden Michael Pallares told her he would push to send her back to men’s prison. She claimed he was hostile, “calling me a predator, saying that I’m preying on women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In men’s prison, Skylit had lived in constant fear of sexual assault. Now \u003cem>she \u003c/em>was cast as a sexual predator. Her disciplinary paperwork relied on “confidential sources” to suggest she was faking her status because she “displays very masculine behavior when with the inmate population.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In isolation, according to grievances and a government claim filed by Orthwein, Skylit’s gender identity was undermined. She had trouble accessing her hormones and was denied a razor for 40 days straight. She grew a full beard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People screaming at me, yelling at me, calling me a man, and I need to go back to the men’s prison,” she said. “‘Look at the hair on yo’ face.’ [I was] pleading, pleading, pleading, ‘Please give me a razor, please give me a razor,’ and denied every time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A psychologist misgendered Skylit in a report, yet \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018435-psychologist-note-razors-clothing\">noted (DOC)\u003c/a> that an extended stay in isolation would likely increase her mental health symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the months that followed, Skylit was sent multiple times to a mental health unit for being suicidal. She was bumped up to a more intensive level of mental health care. Yet she remained in solitary confinement for eight months. Then, without explanation, Pallares released her to the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her freedom wouldn’t last.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘What did you all do to our homegirl?’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Skylit’s time in isolation had taken a toll. On the yard, she said she made enemies when she responded to threats and harassment with aggressive posturing and language. She said she tried not to engage, hanging out and playing cards every day with a couple of other trans women and one cisgender woman who was sweet on her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would hold hands,” she said. “We would hug, we would kiss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials aren’t supposed to penalize trans women more harshly for breaking rules that cisgender prisoners also break, like the one forbidding any behavior that could lead to sex. But the atmosphere around these relationships, interviews and records reveal, was tense and complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some cisgender women feared or lashed out at the new arrivals, others were eager to partner with them. Of a half-dozen transgender women at CCWF who were interviewed by KQED, the five who have not had gender-affirming genital surgery, said they’ve been subject to sexual advances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11955680 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/GettyImages-180517172-1020x680.jpg']Meanwhile, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24016207-mossgroup-sb132-cdcr-assessment-report\">a report (DOC)\u003c/a> on the implementation of the new law commissioned by CDCR found that a “sexualized environment, including being sexually pressured or pursued,” was among the reasons given by transgender women who voluntarily returned to men’s prison. Other reasons included “hostile reception from staff or incarcerated individuals,” “false allegations to be removed from room” and “issues with getting hygiene items, such as razors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In men’s prison, Skylit said, consensual sex generally went unpunished. That made it hard for her to imagine just how much the bond with her new “bestie” would cost her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 19, 2022, Skylit and her friends were on the yard drinking prison-made wine, disciplinary records show. Skylit and her girlfriend were kissing. A few minutes after Skylit went to use the porta-potty, she said, the girlfriend followed her in and started throwing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit said she was holding her hair back when Calvin, one of the trans friends she played cards with, let her know a guard was approaching. Skylit stepped out and asked a couple of other people to check on the girlfriend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They “opened the door and they say, ‘What did you all do to our homegirl? We don’t know what you two doing, we don’t know what’s going on over here,’” Skylit recounted. “And I said, ‘We just been drinking and she was in the thing throwing up.’ But now, it’s a commotion. It’s a crowd coming up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Skylit and two other witnesses, the girlfriend came out, and the guard scolded them. “She was like, ‘I’m OK bestie, I love you so much,’ and I hugged her and I walked away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rumors about a rape started circulating. Skylit said she heard it “from like one or two people. It wasn’t \u003cem>big\u003c/em> until the next day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison\"]‘They were surrounding me and pushing me and spitting on me and swinging at me.’[/pullquote]By then, a fictional narrative had taken shape: In those few moments inside the porta-potty, Skylit had committed rape, while Calvin stood guard. To be clear, prison officials never accused her of rape or sexual assault. The girlfriend told them — and KQED — that it never happened. Still, the rumors proved to be Skylit’s undoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That next day, according to Skylit and five witnesses, as she was returning from a mental health appointment, she was roughed up on the yard by 12 to 15 incarcerated people who called her “nothing but a rapist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were surrounding me and pushing me and spitting on me and swinging at me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED obtained video of the incident through a public records request. There’s no audio, but the grainy image shows Skylit, who had a pass to be on the yard, doing an about-face as a group of incarcerated people in civilian clothes approached her. One appears to throw liquid at her. A few shove and punch her. She gets agitated. At one point, it’s clear that she’s yelling. But she mostly keeps her arms crossed. She never hits back. Still, she is the only one punished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/nS5qpi-NXfE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As Syiaah Skylit, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt under her prison blues, walked through the yard at Central California Women’s Facility in May 2022, she was accosted by incarcerated people who accused her of being a rapist. Courtesy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’d been out of solitary confinement for just four weeks. She went right back in — and she hasn’t come out in more than a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A sergeant who, the video shows, does not walk out to the yard until Skylit is handcuffed, wrote her \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018553-referring-to-sexual-intercourse-through-rape\">rule violation report (DOC)\u003c/a>. He states that he heard her yell, “I’m gonna f- you bitches,” and a few variations on that theme. Then, using her legal name, he adds an editorial aside: “It should be known that when [Skylit] mentioned f-, [Skylit] was referring to sexual intercourse through rape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CCWF initially accused Skylit of “threatening the life of a prisoner,” and referred her to the local district attorney for felony prosecution. It didn’t stick. Ultimately, her writeup was reduced to “behavior which could lead to violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison\"]‘It’s sad to be thankful for complete solitary confinement, isolation.’[/pullquote]In her defense, Skylit pointed to the video as evidence that she wasn’t the aggressor and that others had committed violence against \u003cem>her.\u003c/em> Records show that the senior hearing officer called the video “irrelevant.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR does not comment on specific incarcerated people. Asked to respond to the behavior of the sergeant, it said state regulations forbid discrimination by staff and grant incarcerated people the right to be treated “respectfully, impartially, and fairly by all employees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit was far from alone in experiencing false allegations. Of the trans women at CCWF interviewed by KQED, each said they had been similarly targeted by others who were incarcerated and even by staff. Most were sent to solitary confinement pending investigations. Some were already there when they said they were framed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fancy Lipsey, records show, spent seven months in isolation after she was physically assaulted by other incarcerated people. As soon as she got out, a cisgender woman “went over to the officers and told them that I touched her vagina and her breasts in the dayroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They reviewed the video on the spot “and saw that I was nowhere near this woman.” Still, they told Lipsey they were taking her back to solitary confinement. That’s when she cut her wrists, ending up on suicide watch instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calvin said she was punished after a roommate “went up to the program office and said I supposedly choked” another cisgender woman in their dorm in the middle of the night. The allegation came days after the alleged assault, which no one witnessed or reported at the time. Calvin said it took months to clear her name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tremayne Carroll, a trans woman who uses a wheelchair, said that after she rebuffed sexual advances from a cisgender woman, that woman yelled to guards that Carroll had sexually assaulted her. When that went nowhere, the woman changed her story and said the two had had consensual sex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freddy Fox, an intersex prisoner who identifies as a trans woman and goes by “Foxy,” said she landed in solitary confinement after being assaulted. Alone in her cell in the weeks that followed, she was verbally harassed and accused of sexual impropriety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would allege that I had exposed myself, then I’d have to go to the cameras to show that I did not expose myself,” Foxy said. The officers would then reduce the write-up to a lesser violation, she said, “but it’s still a sexual misconduct! That was the go-to thing in 2021 when we first arrived.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Porta-potty rapist’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Skylit’s case stands out in one crucial way: The false rape allegation went viral. Her chosen and legal names ended up all \u003ca href=\"https://reduxx.info/exclusive-female-inmate-reports-rape-occurred-in-california-womens-prison/\">over the internet.\u003c/a> One outlet called her the perpetrator of a “\u003ca href=\"https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/alleged-port-potty-rape-throws-harsh-glare-california-coed-prison-law-after\">port-a-potty rape\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because, as soon as the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act went into effect, an anti-trans organization called the Women’s Liberation Front started working to roll it back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November 2021, it filed \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276203-chandlervcdcrcomplaint\">a lawsuit (DOC)\u003c/a> in federal court alleging the law violates the constitutional rights of cisgender women by forcing them to be housed with trans women who still have male genitalia. Simply having them there, the pending suit alleges, “substantially” increases the risk “of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and physical violence, and to psychological fear of such harms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Women’s Liberation Front was looking for a villain. The rumors about Skylit fit its narrative perfectly. Even though there were no eyewitnesses, no prison investigation and a girlfriend who \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276218-43-3-asia-davis-declaration\">said the rape never happened (DOC)\u003c/a>, attorneys for the organization gathered hearsay declarations. The attorney handed them over to anti-trans websites and \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276220-decl-of-plaintiff-supporter-mimi-lee-alleging-rape-of-ad-in-opposition-to-dismissal-033113109979\">attached them to a motion in the legal docket (DOC)\u003c/a>, making the declarations public record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the tier in solitary confinement, the taunts of “porta-potty rapist” have been endless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More on LGBTQI+ Rights' tag='transgender-rights']“I tell people, stop calling me that,” Skylit said. “Then, I’m a problem because I say things like, ‘Well, if I’m a rapist, then you a rapist,’ and then it’s like, ‘Oh, now he’s a threat, he’s arguing, he’s aggressive.’ I’m in a cage. By myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit said cisgender incarcerated people have threatened to stab her, even chop off her penis. They’ve done it in front of officers without consequence. Yet just about every time she has erupted with verbal threats, she is written up. Prison officials have used the outbursts, and the enemies she’s made, as justification to keep her in solitary confinement, labeling her a “threat to the management and security of the institution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some prisoners in solitary confinement — what CDCR calls restricted housing — are allowed cellmates for company. Skylit has had to cell alone. Some are allowed onto an open yard. But Skylit was designated a potential threat to others, so she has had to exercise in a cage that’s about 12-by-8 feet, often surrounded by other incarcerated people who insult her. When she attends her mental health groups, she is among those who must sit in a cage the size of a telephone booth called a “therapeutic module.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6987940/\">studies \u003c/a>confirm how damaging long-term solitary confinement is to mental health. So it’s no surprise that Skylit has struggled. Records show she has harmed herself on several occasions, once punching the wall until her hand bled. After that incident, for a few weeks in August 2022, she was medicated against her will with high doses of antipsychotic drugs. Too drugged to mount a defense, she was found guilty of multiple rule violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A judge determined the prison violated her civil rights by force-medicating her. For Skylit, it was an important victory. But the whole experience eroded her faith in the prison mental health system. As the months ticked by, she went off all her medications — not just the hormones, but also the ones that treat depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Shattered trust\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s important to note that many cisgender incarcerated people at CCWF with histories of sexual victimization were truly scared of the newly arriving transgender women. Some still are. The fear-mongering from staff and outside anti-trans groups has not helped. But those fears appear to be unfounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED requested discipline data from CCWF. In the two years after the new law took effect, staff did not issue a single rule violation for physical or sexual violence to the trans women who came over from men’s prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, write-ups for violence were common in the rest of the prison population, including for fighting, assault and battery on prisoners and staff, and even inciting a riot. The data also show that the new arrivals under the law were six times more likely than other CCWF prisoners to be punished for behavior that could lead to consensual sex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it happens, there was a violent predator at CCWF. Allegedly, there was more than one and they weren’t transgender women. They were cisgender men, employees of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May 2023, as Skylit struggled to hold onto herself in her solitary cell, she heard the news that Gregory Rodriguez, a longtime guard at CCWF, was facing a 96-count criminal complaint for allegedly sexually assaulting more than a dozen incarcerated women over the course of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’d been allowed to retire in August 2022 while under investigation. In addition to those charges, six women filed lawsuits under Jane Roe or Jane Doe pseudonyms against Rodriguez in federal court, contending he lured them to a suite of offices where there are no cameras and forcibly raped them. One of these alleged assaults took place on May 20, 2022, the same day that the crowd surrounded Skylit and called \u003cem>her\u003c/em> a rapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article280162624.html\">settled those suits\u003c/a> earlier this month for $3.7 million. More lawsuits have been filed alleging sexual assaults by CCWF employees. Four of the named victims are transgender women, Skylit among them. Her \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018568-skylitsexabusecomplaintaug14_2023\">lawsuit (DOC)\u003c/a> contends that Rodriguez and Pallares, the warden who called her a predator, each demanded sexual favors from her in the spring of 2022 “for the purpose of humiliating, degrading and demeaning” her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For him to have me come into that room, it’s just so dirty,” Skylit said. “I feel dirty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pallares was demoted in January after the Rodriguez scandal broke. Currently, an associate warden at Pleasant Valley State Prison, he declined comment. Prison officials wouldn’t say whether Pallares was under investigation. But in a statement, officials said CDCR investigates all sexual assault allegations, and “resolutely condemns any staff member who violates their oath and shatters the trust of the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison\"]‘I don’t even understand who I am anymore. I’m full of anger. Hatred, ooh, hatred is huge for me right now. I’m lost, I’m completely lost.’[/pullquote]The totality of Skylit’s experience has left \u003cem>her \u003c/em>shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They come to my door every day asking me if I want to take my hormones. No, I don’t want to take no hormones,” she told KQED in March after 10 months of isolation. “I don’t even understand who I am anymore. I’m full of anger. Hatred, ooh, hatred is huge for me right now. I’m lost, I’m completely lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spending more than two years in solitary confinement means she hasn’t had access to the kind of programming that would earn her good-time credits and earlier release, like school, work and vocational training. She has never laid a finger on another prisoner or an officer, but her disciplinary write-ups have nevertheless added more than a year to her original 16-year sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials are again recommending that Skylit be returned to a men’s prison. It requires a hearing that’s already been postponed for 17 months. She’s flip-flopped on whether to go back voluntarily. Being stuck in a box is destroying her, she said, and getting back into the general population may help her get out sooner. But with being falsely labeled a rapist, she’s terrified.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They will kill me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If she does end up back in men’s prison, she shared in an emotional phone call, she plans to keep her gender identity secret. To prepare for the possibility, she started working out so she could fight for her life. She sold her earrings. And she cut off all her hair. She’d been growing it out for more than eight years, ever since those trans women in county jail lit a fire inside her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making herself “bald-headed” as she said, was a painful act of surrender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit also threw away the trans-friendly children’s books she’d worked so hard to bring to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told myself, I’m not gonna get emotional or emo with this stuff no more,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A path forward\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s law was meant to protect transgender women, but the culture at CCWF and rising anti-trans fervor all over the country have exposed them to new traumas. Implementation has been slow. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.oig.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Special-Review-No.-22-01.pdf\">report (PDF)\u003c/a> issued in late August by the current inspector general noted a “significant backlog” in transfer requests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of nearly 400 incarcerated people who’ve requested housing transfers under the law — the vast majority transgender women asking to move to women’s prison — more than 300 are still waiting for a committee to hear their case. Many live in daily fear of sexual and physical assault, said A.D. Lewis, an attorney who runs Trans Beyond Bars, a project for the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A transgender man, Lewis regularly communicates with trans-incarcerated people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three dozen or so trans women who made it to CCWF — most during the first six months of implementation — are the vanguard. Many, like Skylit, have suffered. A small number have been transferred to the California Institution for Women, a lower security prison in San Bernardino County, where they say conditions are slightly better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jen Orthwein, forensic psychologist, co-founder of Medina Orthwein LLP\"]‘These systems are so built to destroy people, and if they survive and get out, they’re not better and they’re often much worse.’[/pullquote]In a statement, CDCR said it is working to implement some of the changes \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24016207-mossgroup-sb132-cdcr-assessment-report\">recommended by outside consultants (DOC)\u003c/a> earlier this year and is committed to providing “a safe, humane, respectful and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated people, including the transgender, non-binary and intersex community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates acknowledge that the cycles of harm continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of respecting trans people’s self-determination and prioritizing their safety, as the law requires,” Lewis said, correctional staff and other incarcerated people have used it “to put a target on trans peoples’ back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after prison officials received KQED’s questions for this story in September, CCWF revoked all phone privileges for Skylit and others in solitary confinement. In an email to KQED after the initial publication of this story, a CDCR official said the revocation of phone privileges was a policy change ending what had been a temporary, more liberal phone privileges policy instituted in the early days of the COVID pandemic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit’s attorney worries about the impact of the trauma on her future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These systems are so built to destroy people, and if they survive and get out, they’re not better and they’re often much worse,” Orthwein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter sent in July 2023 to Newsom, nearly two-dozen advocacy and legal organizations pressing for better treatment for transgender, nonbinary and intersex prisoners \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991938-tni-coalition-letter-to-governor-newsom-71723pdf-2\">urged clemency (DOC)\u003c/a> for those who have experienced harm in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener, meanwhile, expressed deep frustration with the pace of implementation. In response to KQED’s findings, he said he was “horrified to hear how trans women are being treated in women’s prison, both by the prisons and by other inmates. The fact that they’re being treated harshly and slandered, called rapists when they’re not, it’s terrifying and we’re not going to just let this go.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Lee Romney is a longtime journalist who spent 23 years at the \u003c/em>Los Angeles Times\u003cem>. Jennifer Johnson is a former career public defender who helped launch San Francisco’s Behavioral Health Court. This reporting, supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the California Health Care Foundation, is part of a forthcoming podcast they’re co-creating. Called \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.novemberinmysoul.com/\">\u003cem>November In My Soul\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, it explores the way bias makes its way into our intertwined mental health and criminal legal systems.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"California’s Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act was meant to protect transgender people, but the culture at state prisons and rising anti-trans fervor throughout the country have exposed them to new traumas.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1698096184,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":155,"wordCount":7792},"headData":{"title":"California Prisons Fail to Uphold Transgender Rights Despite State Law | KQED","description":"California’s Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act was meant to protect transgender people, but the culture at state prisons and rising anti-trans fervor throughout the country have exposed them to new traumas.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"audioUrl":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/chrt.fm/track/G6C7C3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC2105203052.mp3?updated=1697154277","nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://www.novemberinmysoul.com/about/#62b093f21c801819ce513743\">Lee Romney and Jenny Johnson\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11964027/california-prisons-fail-to-uphold-transgender-rights-despite-state-law","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Warning: There are descriptions of physical and sexual violence in this piece. Also, where legal names and chosen names differ, we’re using chosen names.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">S\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>yiaah Skylit had been stuck in solitary confinement at a maximum-security men’s prison for months when, in the fall of 2020, she got the news that gave her hope: Gov. Gavin Newsom had signed the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB132\">Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the law requires California prison staff to use the chosen pronouns of incarcerated people who are intersex or identify as nonbinary or transgender, as Skylit does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It allows those incarcerated people to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/prea/sb-132-faqs/\">select a gender preference for the guards who search them\u003c/a>. Most significantly, it mandates that prison officials, under most circumstances, honor requests to be housed at the type of facility — male or female — that aligns with the incarcerated person’s gender identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For six years, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation bounced Skylit from one men’s prison to another. At each, safety proved elusive. By 2020, she was isolated in a cell for her own protection after brutal attacks by people she was incarcerated with and, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991903-syiaahkvsp2ndamendedcomplaint2022-03-03\">a lawsuit alleges (PDF)\u003c/a>, by guards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prospect of serving out her remaining sentence in a women’s facility seemed nothing short of a miracle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me, what it felt like was a sanctuary,” she said in one of several dozen interviews with KQED over the course of a year. “A place to be who you were meant to be without any retaliation, without any violence, without any judgment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades have passed since simply \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917624/how-a-young-gay-man-survived-one-of-the-darkest-eras-in-california-queer-history\">being LGBTQ+ was considered a crime and a mental illness\u003c/a>. But bias and marginalization still lead to high rates of criminalization, especially for \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/NTDS_Report.pdf\">Black trans women (PDF)\u003c/a> like Skylit. Once incarcerated, harsh prison conditions take a serious toll on mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/0/1149/files/2013/06/BulletinVol2Issue2.pdf\">Studies (PDF)\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf\">surveys (PDF)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/pdca15.pdf\">federal data (PDF)\u003c/a> show that trans women held in men’s prisons are sexually and physically assaulted at rates as much as 13 times higher than cisgender men. When they report assaults or fears for their safety, they’re often met with \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991938-tni-coalition-letter-to-governor-newsom-71723pdf-2\">staff retaliation (PDF)\u003c/a>. It’s not uncommon for trans women to harm themselves — just to get to the safety of a prison mental health bed. Skylit had lived that, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘For me, what it felt like was a sanctuary. A place to be who you were meant to be without any retaliation, without any violence, without any judgment.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act promised an end to those nightmares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No more having to hide in fear,” Skylit said. “No more having to be quiet about who I really am. I was excited. I couldn’t wait.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story is a result of a year-long investigation into the effectiveness of the legislation that aimed to reduce the trauma of transgender women in California’s prisons. KQED’s reporters interviewed a dozen incarcerated people and reviewed data along with several hundred pages of prison grievances, disciplinary records and legal filings. The reporting revealed that trans women like Skylit and many others transferred to a women’s prison under the new law have not found the sanctuary they were seeking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Skylit, the nightmares have only gotten worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Living with secrets\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Skylit grew up in Compton. When she was 5, she and her siblings entered the foster care system after their mother suffered a mental health break. When Skylit was 14, her mother died by apparent suicide, and the following year, she said, “I tried to kill myself by running in front of a moving train.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was physically uninjured but sent to a psychiatric hospital. It wouldn’t be the last time she’d tried to take her own life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964099\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964099\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-800x949.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"949\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-800x949.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-1020x1210.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-160x190.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED-1295x1536.jpg 1295w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Free-Syiaah-social-KQED.jpg 1686w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In August 2020, as Syiaah Skylit sat in solitary confinement at Kern Valley State Prison for her own protection, transgender advocates launched a Change.org campaign urging clemency for her. She helped with the design of the artwork. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Syiaah Skylit, Micah Bazant and Freddie Francis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Skylit is a slight 5 feet, 5 inches tall with a big, dimpled smile. As a teen and living as a boy, she was bullied for being a flashy dresser, for the way she carried herself. She experimented with a gay relationship, but it left her feeling “confused.” The adults in her life were religious and viewed LGBTQ+ people as sinners. Her brothers were gang members. She did what they asked of her, she said, because “I didn’t want to look weak.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t come out and be myself around people like my family and my friends that I grew up with,” Skylit said. “I grew up in a hard-ass neighborhood. That ain’t about to fly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she harbored a secret she never shared with her brothers, one even she didn’t fully comprehend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would dress up. I would put makeup on. All I understood as a person was, ‘Hey, I like this,’” she said. “So if I like this, why is it so bad? Am I a bad person?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A stint in juvenile detention didn’t stop Skylit from setting her sights on a bright future. She finished high school on time, enrolled in community college, worked multiple jobs and, for a while, paid her rent. But anxiety, depression and drug use interrupted her stability. She’d already been homeless once when, facing eviction in 2012, she and a friend robbed a convenience store in San Bernardino County. It yielded little, so they robbed a Los Angeles County jewelry store — and got caught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 22, Skylit was facing criminal trials in both counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘I couldn’t come out and be myself around people like my family and my friends that I grew up with. I grew up in a hard-ass neighborhood. That ain’t about to fly.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Her first stop was a San Bernardino County jail, where she came out as gay to get to the relative safety of what was then called the “alternative lifestyles tank.” According to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23999484-syiaah2015sanbernardinocolawsuit\">class-action lawsuit (DOC)\u003c/a>, the conditions were distressing: discrimination by staff and denial of basic services. Skylit, under her legal name, was among the named plaintiffs. A settlement led to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24002812-sanbernardinoinjunctiverelief\">significant reforms (DOC)\u003c/a>. It was in that jail, she said, where she first learned to advocate for her rights, even in the face of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also where she first encountered openly transgender women and was blown away by their courage and joyful confidence. In their midst, Skylit said, she at last felt free of judgment, open to self-acceptance. Her next stop — a stint in the segregated LGBTQ+ tank at the Los Angeles County jail — only reinforced those feelings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s when I got a taste of all the ‘T’ and I was just living it,” she said of the ‘T’ for Transgender in the alphabet soup of LGBTQ+. “It was like discovering myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was sentenced to 16 years in prison. It may seem paradoxical, but incarceration gave Skylit breathing room to explore her gender identity. In court, she apologized to her robbery victims. Then, she made a promise to herself to use “every second, every minute” of her time inside “to really find out who I am. I mean, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I felt I had.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit entered California’s prison system for men in December 2015. Soon, she chose her new name. “Syiaah” is an acronym — sexy, young, intelligent, ambitious, authentic and heroic. She picked “Sky” as “an inspiration to reach higher limits.” And “lit” is a nod to her hip-hop Compton roots “to be vibrant, live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Put it together, it’s ‘I keep the sky lit’,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In keeping with the up-to-date \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24002874-ama-medical-spectrum-of-gender-d-295312\">medical (DOC)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients\">psychiatric\u003c/a> understanding of gender identity, the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act doesn’t require incarcerated people to be on hormone replacement therapy or to be interested in gender-affirming surgeries to be transferred to housing that aligns with their sense of safety. During Skylit’s early years in prison, that wasn’t the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11957664","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/110822-KernValleyPrison-LV_CM_04-1020x680.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation \u003cem>did\u003c/em> consider such transfer requests. The federal Prison Rape Elimination Act had since 2012 \u003ca href=\"https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/frequently-asked-questions/does-policy-houses-transgender-or-intersex-inmates-based-exclusively\">forbidden\u003c/a> the department from housing prisoners based solely on external genital anatomy. But the CDCR did it on a case-by-case basis, and the tiny number granted all happened to be for trans women who’d had gender-affirming genital surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everybody wants that. Gender identity and gender transition are deeply personal. Skylit’s records show she declared her transgender identity on a special CDCR form about a year after arrival — and soon after started \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018578-skylit-2019-housing-complaint\">asking to be transferred to a women’s prison (DOC)\u003c/a>. That went nowhere. So Skylit worked to stay true to her transition, even as she was funneled through a series of men’s prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I tapped into it, despite the long time I was facing, I was happy,” she said. “But that happiness turned into survival real fast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Met by violence\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Almost immediately, Skylit’s gender identity and small stature made her a target. On several occasions, she said, correctional officers placed her in cells with large men who specifically requested her and then pressured her for sex. When she filed grievances in an attempt to switch cells or responded to physical assaults by fighting, she said, staff responded with Rule Violation Reports, known as RVRs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more I would push back,” she said, “the more they would attack me with RVRs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Skylit pressed on. She requested hormone replacement therapy, and by the time those treatments started, in 2018, she’d been moved to Mule Creek State Prison near the small Sierra foothills town of Ione. It’s one of a dozen or so facilities in the state designated as “transgender hubs.” That means, medical and mental services for trans prisoners are concentrated there, as are prison commissary items unavailable elsewhere, such as sports bras and makeup for trans women, and boxer shorts for trans men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit could finally stop MacGyvering her fashion looks. She could style her hair, wear makeup and earrings. On the prison yard, she said she found a sense of belonging with her trans sisters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were out there,” she said. “Having fun, protecting each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even at men’s prisons designated as transgender hubs, trans women were mixed with cisgender men in common areas and their assigned cells. The truer Skylit felt to herself, she said, the greater the danger she experienced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah, it’s OK to come out and you got a nice little outfit on, but guess what you just did?” she said. “You just called attention to yourself and now you have certain people who are making sexual advances towards you, and some of them don’t stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of her trans sisters exchanged sex for safety. But even that was no guarantee of safety. Skylit wept while recounting how a close friend staggered out of her cell “with a huge gash in her skull, busted lip, trying to get out of the room that she placed herself in because she wanted to be \u003cem>herself\u003c/em>. And she couldn’t complain to the officers, because they’re not gonna do anything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘Either I’m gonna be who I wanna be or I’m gonna end up dead. Girl, I can’t be dead and be myself at the same time.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>So Skylit found herself facing a soul-crushing choice between her safety and her identity. Skylit drew a line against assault. That meant more fights and more disciplinary write-ups. The hormone treatments caused muscle weakness, so she made another compromise. She began stopping and starting the medications depending on the danger she was facing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Either I’m gonna be who I wanna be or I’m gonna end up dead,” she said. “Girl, I can’t be dead and be myself at the same time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a survival strategy it made sense, but abruptly going on and off hormones brings on acute mood swings. It also heightens \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis\">gender dysphoria\u003c/a>, a mental health diagnosis associated with distress a person can feel at being a gender other than the one assigned at birth. Skylit had experienced that for most of her life, as she hid her true gender identity, and it caused depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Skylit juggled these stressors, prison officials transferred her again — this time to Kern Valley State Prison, a maximum-security facility in the Central Valley town of Delano that houses some of the state’s most violent offenders. Among them, transgender advocates \u003ca href=\"https://prisonhealth.news/2021/10/29/lgbtq-prison-testimonies-dakota-rose-in-california/\">note\u003c/a>, are gang members known to target LGBTQ+ people in prisons. That’s where she \u003ca href=\"https://sfbayview.com/2021/05/trans-woman-seeks-release-from-cdcr-custody-after-attacks/\">hit a new low\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Skylit and a \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991903-syiaahkvsp2ndamendedcomplaint2022-03-03\">lawsuit filed on her behalf (DOC),\u003c/a> she was assaulted twice by incarcerated men and witnessed gruesome attacks on two other trans women. Terrified, she says she asked to speak to a sergeant about her safety concerns. Instead, she alleges, two officers followed her into her cell. One pulled down her pants, ran a baton along her bottom and threatened to rape her with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I’m just sitting there like this can’t be real,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11954055","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/230626-CALIFORNIA-PRISONERS-AP-RP-KQED-1020x735.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That night, she drank from a bottle of laundry detergent in a desperate attempt to get sent to a mental health crisis unit. An officer stripped her of her clothes and left her lying naked in her cell next to the empty bottle. The next day, an officer pepper sprayed her at close range. Others beat her with batons. CDCR does not comment on active litigation. In legal filings, the named officers have denied wrongdoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, Skylit said, a sergeant agreed to isolate her for her protection. That’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.vera.org/news/violence-torture-and-isolation-what-its-like-to-be-trans-in-prison\">a common fate for trans women\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s sad to be thankful for complete solitary confinement, isolation,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She would stay there for seven months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit had sought help from various attorneys. One responded. Jen Orthwein is a forensic psychologist who once treated transgender clients behind prison walls. They later co-founded a queer-owned law firm to challenge the harsh conditions they’d witnessed. Orthwein worked with other transgender advocates to launch a \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/gavin-newsom-call-for-the-immediate-release-of-syiaah-skylit-from-cdcr-custody-blacktranslivesmatter?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=cc830240-3ea3-11e9-a4df-e5579d49cec9\">petition\u003c/a> for clemency on Skylit’s behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, with colored pencils and paper, Skylit got to work crafting a series of illustrated \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018571-its-a-colorful-world-by-syiaah-skylit\">children’s books (DOC)\u003c/a> featuring gender-non-conforming characters. Among them is a rainbow-colored kid named Unique, who is fully embraced by loving parents but bullied on the playground for delighting in toys conventionally meant for both boys and girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project helped Skylit reimagine her traumatic past. She also hoped her books might make their way into the world and change the mindset of young readers “to where they’re not growing into hatred, but actually out of it.” She finished two, got started on a third. And that’s where she was when Orthewin gave her the good news. The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act was state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964104\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Scans of two pages of drawing and text from a hand written book.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231011-ITS-A-COLORFUL-WORLD-2-KQED.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Excerpts from ‘It’s a Colorful World.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Syiaah Skylit)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It was like a prayer had been answered,” Skylit said. “Like, ‘This is it!’ This is going to be the beginning of Syiaah Skylit at her best, at completely being herself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>New perils\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wiener’s bill was years in the making, and he’s quick to note that top CDCR officials were on board. They welcomed advocates to join a working group to brainstorm solutions to unsafe conditions and sought input directly from incarcerated transgender people. The Office of Inspector General detailed in \u003ca href=\"https://www.oig.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Special-Review-Incarcerated-Transgender-Nonbinary-Intersex-Individuals.pdf\">a 2020 report (PDF)\u003c/a> the painful responses to those surveys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laws in \u003ca href=\"https://www.acluct.org/en/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-trans-people-who-are-incarcerated-connecticut\">Connecticut\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991974-952-management-of-gender-diverse-and-intersex-inmates-final-version\">Rhode Island (DOC)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lgbtqbar.org/bar-news/tiproject/ma/\">Massachusetts\u003c/a> call for similar reforms, while \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu-nj.org/en/press-releases/settlement-nj-civil-rights-suit-promises-necessary-reform-affirming-transgender\">New Jersey\u003c/a> has made comparable policy changes in response to litigation. But advocates who helped craft California’s law say it is the most expansive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener said in an interview that he knew at the start that the magnitude of changes mandated by the law required patience and that it would take time to implement. More recently, though, he’s grown deeply concerned about the way his legislation has played out on the ground. Because, he said, even with senior CDCR management on board, “the culture in the individual prisons is just so challenging that it doesn’t translate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964100\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964100\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-800x539.jpg\" alt='A group of people, most wearing the same uniform of blue shirts and pants, stand together holding signs and joined by a person wearing a suit helping to hold a banner reading \"trans lives matter.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"539\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-800x539.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-1020x687.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-160x108.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-1536x1035.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED-1920x1294.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/SenWienerAtSanQuentinTransRemembranceDay-2019-KQED.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) attends CDCR’s first Transgender Remembrance Day in 2019, organized jointly by trans and cisgender incarcerated people. Wiener had already authored the bill that would become the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, with buy-in from top CDCR officials. \u003ccite>(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officials chose the Central California Women’s Facility, or CCWF, in Chowchilla as the prison where all the trans women would go first. It’s a facility with a \u003ca href=\"https://prisonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/16.08.18-Prison-Law-Office-report-on-CCWF.pdf\">troubled history (PDF)\u003c/a> when it comes to staff accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of a dozen CCWF prisoners interviewed by KQED, all said they heard correctional staff express hostility to the new law even before the transfers began, warning the cisgender population that fakers and sexual predators were heading their way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tasha Brown, a cisgender woman, said she heard guards say, “The doors were going to be open for people to come in to violate us, to rape us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomas Green, a transgender man, said he heard guards “telling women here that the trans women were men and that they were gonna get raped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11936438","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/12/1920px-CentralCaliforniaWomensFacility-1020x816.jpeg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Alexanne Danis, a cisgender woman, said she heard a lieutenant openly state that the transfers “don’t belong here, that they have to leave.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officers and fellow cisgender incarcerated people, Danis said, also spoke about driving the new transfers out, “saying that they were gonna stage stuff and that they were gonna make it sound worse than it was if anything did happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michelle Calvin was one of the first transgender women to arrive at CCWF. She helped work on Wiener’s legislation and has since transferred to the lower-security California Institution for Women. She heard the characterizations by staff that trans women were “gonna come over here and rape y’all and beat y’all up and take y’all stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power to reverse the law, she heard officers tell incarcerated people, rested in their hands: “Take your house back. Take your prison back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates who helped craft the law were well aware of this toxic environment. They say they pressed officials to allow them to hold a town hall at the women’s prison to defuse these narratives before the transfers began. It never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the trans women who began arriving in the first half of 2021 had no idea what they were stepping into.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orthwein, Skylit’s attorney, was part of the working group that informed the new law and said key CDCR decisions around implementation proved harmful. The new arrivals were held in segregation for their first month. There, they were issued new prison identification numbers beginning with a distinctive two-letter combination. Instead of “some semblance of privacy about their transgender status,” which advocates had pressed for, this immediately outed them, feeding hostility and rejection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CCWF houses people in dorms, as many as eight to a room. Without exception, the trans women interviewed by KQED said they have been refused entry to dorms by prisoners who viewed them as “men.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Skylit’s first day in the general population, in mid-July 2021, guards started writing her up for minor violations. Within a month, she was in solitary confinement, accused of having a consensual relationship with her cisgender female bunkmate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sex is against prison rules systemwide, but every CCWF prisoner interviewed for this piece said it’s extremely common, especially in women’s prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘At the end of the day, we’re humans. I’m not saying every relationship in here is just peachy perfect, no. You have a lot of relationships in here that are toxic — fight, argue. But that’s life in the free world.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Tomas Green, transgender man in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Yes, you’re not supposed to have sex but it happens. It’s natural and there’s nothing that’s gonna stop it from happening,” said Giovanni Gonzales, a transgender man who runs a group to educate peers about gender identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Relationships form quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the end of the day, we’re humans,” Green said. “I’m not saying every relationship in here is just peachy perfect, no. You have a lot of relationships in here that are toxic — fight, argue. But that’s life in the free world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, while sex and intimacy may be universal, punishment is not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzales and Green said staff often turn a blind eye to cisgender women who couple up, especially if they express their gender in stereotypically feminine ways. If a transgender man is caught being amorous, they said, a rule violation is more likely. As for the trans women who were just arriving at CCWF, a harsher set of unwritten rules seemed to apply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One cisgender couple in Skylit’s dorm had been having regular sex without consequence, she said. As Skylit was handcuffed and written up for her relationship, she asked an officer why she was going to isolation and the bunkmate wasn’t. He replied, “Because you’re a man and she’s a woman.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a hearing to discuss her situation, records show that Acting Warden Michael Pallares told her he would push to send her back to men’s prison. She claimed he was hostile, “calling me a predator, saying that I’m preying on women.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In men’s prison, Skylit had lived in constant fear of sexual assault. Now \u003cem>she \u003c/em>was cast as a sexual predator. Her disciplinary paperwork relied on “confidential sources” to suggest she was faking her status because she “displays very masculine behavior when with the inmate population.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In isolation, according to grievances and a government claim filed by Orthwein, Skylit’s gender identity was undermined. She had trouble accessing her hormones and was denied a razor for 40 days straight. She grew a full beard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People screaming at me, yelling at me, calling me a man, and I need to go back to the men’s prison,” she said. “‘Look at the hair on yo’ face.’ [I was] pleading, pleading, pleading, ‘Please give me a razor, please give me a razor,’ and denied every time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A psychologist misgendered Skylit in a report, yet \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018435-psychologist-note-razors-clothing\">noted (DOC)\u003c/a> that an extended stay in isolation would likely increase her mental health symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the months that followed, Skylit was sent multiple times to a mental health unit for being suicidal. She was bumped up to a more intensive level of mental health care. Yet she remained in solitary confinement for eight months. Then, without explanation, Pallares released her to the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her freedom wouldn’t last.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘What did you all do to our homegirl?’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Skylit’s time in isolation had taken a toll. On the yard, she said she made enemies when she responded to threats and harassment with aggressive posturing and language. She said she tried not to engage, hanging out and playing cards every day with a couple of other trans women and one cisgender woman who was sweet on her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would hold hands,” she said. “We would hug, we would kiss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials aren’t supposed to penalize trans women more harshly for breaking rules that cisgender prisoners also break, like the one forbidding any behavior that could lead to sex. But the atmosphere around these relationships, interviews and records reveal, was tense and complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some cisgender women feared or lashed out at the new arrivals, others were eager to partner with them. Of a half-dozen transgender women at CCWF who were interviewed by KQED, the five who have not had gender-affirming genital surgery, said they’ve been subject to sexual advances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11955680","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/GettyImages-180517172-1020x680.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Meanwhile, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24016207-mossgroup-sb132-cdcr-assessment-report\">a report (DOC)\u003c/a> on the implementation of the new law commissioned by CDCR found that a “sexualized environment, including being sexually pressured or pursued,” was among the reasons given by transgender women who voluntarily returned to men’s prison. Other reasons included “hostile reception from staff or incarcerated individuals,” “false allegations to be removed from room” and “issues with getting hygiene items, such as razors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In men’s prison, Skylit said, consensual sex generally went unpunished. That made it hard for her to imagine just how much the bond with her new “bestie” would cost her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 19, 2022, Skylit and her friends were on the yard drinking prison-made wine, disciplinary records show. Skylit and her girlfriend were kissing. A few minutes after Skylit went to use the porta-potty, she said, the girlfriend followed her in and started throwing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit said she was holding her hair back when Calvin, one of the trans friends she played cards with, let her know a guard was approaching. Skylit stepped out and asked a couple of other people to check on the girlfriend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They “opened the door and they say, ‘What did you all do to our homegirl? We don’t know what you two doing, we don’t know what’s going on over here,’” Skylit recounted. “And I said, ‘We just been drinking and she was in the thing throwing up.’ But now, it’s a commotion. It’s a crowd coming up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Skylit and two other witnesses, the girlfriend came out, and the guard scolded them. “She was like, ‘I’m OK bestie, I love you so much,’ and I hugged her and I walked away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rumors about a rape started circulating. Skylit said she heard it “from like one or two people. It wasn’t \u003cem>big\u003c/em> until the next day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘They were surrounding me and pushing me and spitting on me and swinging at me.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>By then, a fictional narrative had taken shape: In those few moments inside the porta-potty, Skylit had committed rape, while Calvin stood guard. To be clear, prison officials never accused her of rape or sexual assault. The girlfriend told them — and KQED — that it never happened. Still, the rumors proved to be Skylit’s undoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That next day, according to Skylit and five witnesses, as she was returning from a mental health appointment, she was roughed up on the yard by 12 to 15 incarcerated people who called her “nothing but a rapist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were surrounding me and pushing me and spitting on me and swinging at me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED obtained video of the incident through a public records request. There’s no audio, but the grainy image shows Skylit, who had a pass to be on the yard, doing an about-face as a group of incarcerated people in civilian clothes approached her. One appears to throw liquid at her. A few shove and punch her. She gets agitated. At one point, it’s clear that she’s yelling. But she mostly keeps her arms crossed. She never hits back. Still, she is the only one punished.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/nS5qpi-NXfE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/nS5qpi-NXfE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>As Syiaah Skylit, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt under her prison blues, walked through the yard at Central California Women’s Facility in May 2022, she was accosted by incarcerated people who accused her of being a rapist. Courtesy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’d been out of solitary confinement for just four weeks. She went right back in — and she hasn’t come out in more than a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A sergeant who, the video shows, does not walk out to the yard until Skylit is handcuffed, wrote her \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018553-referring-to-sexual-intercourse-through-rape\">rule violation report (DOC)\u003c/a>. He states that he heard her yell, “I’m gonna f- you bitches,” and a few variations on that theme. Then, using her legal name, he adds an editorial aside: “It should be known that when [Skylit] mentioned f-, [Skylit] was referring to sexual intercourse through rape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CCWF initially accused Skylit of “threatening the life of a prisoner,” and referred her to the local district attorney for felony prosecution. It didn’t stick. Ultimately, her writeup was reduced to “behavior which could lead to violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘It’s sad to be thankful for complete solitary confinement, isolation.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In her defense, Skylit pointed to the video as evidence that she wasn’t the aggressor and that others had committed violence against \u003cem>her.\u003c/em> Records show that the senior hearing officer called the video “irrelevant.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR does not comment on specific incarcerated people. Asked to respond to the behavior of the sergeant, it said state regulations forbid discrimination by staff and grant incarcerated people the right to be treated “respectfully, impartially, and fairly by all employees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit was far from alone in experiencing false allegations. Of the trans women at CCWF interviewed by KQED, each said they had been similarly targeted by others who were incarcerated and even by staff. Most were sent to solitary confinement pending investigations. Some were already there when they said they were framed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fancy Lipsey, records show, spent seven months in isolation after she was physically assaulted by other incarcerated people. As soon as she got out, a cisgender woman “went over to the officers and told them that I touched her vagina and her breasts in the dayroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They reviewed the video on the spot “and saw that I was nowhere near this woman.” Still, they told Lipsey they were taking her back to solitary confinement. That’s when she cut her wrists, ending up on suicide watch instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calvin said she was punished after a roommate “went up to the program office and said I supposedly choked” another cisgender woman in their dorm in the middle of the night. The allegation came days after the alleged assault, which no one witnessed or reported at the time. Calvin said it took months to clear her name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tremayne Carroll, a trans woman who uses a wheelchair, said that after she rebuffed sexual advances from a cisgender woman, that woman yelled to guards that Carroll had sexually assaulted her. When that went nowhere, the woman changed her story and said the two had had consensual sex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freddy Fox, an intersex prisoner who identifies as a trans woman and goes by “Foxy,” said she landed in solitary confinement after being assaulted. Alone in her cell in the weeks that followed, she was verbally harassed and accused of sexual impropriety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They would allege that I had exposed myself, then I’d have to go to the cameras to show that I did not expose myself,” Foxy said. The officers would then reduce the write-up to a lesser violation, she said, “but it’s still a sexual misconduct! That was the go-to thing in 2021 when we first arrived.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Porta-potty rapist’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Skylit’s case stands out in one crucial way: The false rape allegation went viral. Her chosen and legal names ended up all \u003ca href=\"https://reduxx.info/exclusive-female-inmate-reports-rape-occurred-in-california-womens-prison/\">over the internet.\u003c/a> One outlet called her the perpetrator of a “\u003ca href=\"https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/alleged-port-potty-rape-throws-harsh-glare-california-coed-prison-law-after\">port-a-potty rape\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because, as soon as the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act went into effect, an anti-trans organization called the Women’s Liberation Front started working to roll it back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November 2021, it filed \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276203-chandlervcdcrcomplaint\">a lawsuit (DOC)\u003c/a> in federal court alleging the law violates the constitutional rights of cisgender women by forcing them to be housed with trans women who still have male genitalia. Simply having them there, the pending suit alleges, “substantially” increases the risk “of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and physical violence, and to psychological fear of such harms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Women’s Liberation Front was looking for a villain. The rumors about Skylit fit its narrative perfectly. Even though there were no eyewitnesses, no prison investigation and a girlfriend who \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276218-43-3-asia-davis-declaration\">said the rape never happened (DOC)\u003c/a>, attorneys for the organization gathered hearsay declarations. The attorney handed them over to anti-trans websites and \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276220-decl-of-plaintiff-supporter-mimi-lee-alleging-rape-of-ad-in-opposition-to-dismissal-033113109979\">attached them to a motion in the legal docket (DOC)\u003c/a>, making the declarations public record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the tier in solitary confinement, the taunts of “porta-potty rapist” have been endless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"More on LGBTQI+ Rights ","tag":"transgender-rights"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I tell people, stop calling me that,” Skylit said. “Then, I’m a problem because I say things like, ‘Well, if I’m a rapist, then you a rapist,’ and then it’s like, ‘Oh, now he’s a threat, he’s arguing, he’s aggressive.’ I’m in a cage. By myself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit said cisgender incarcerated people have threatened to stab her, even chop off her penis. They’ve done it in front of officers without consequence. Yet just about every time she has erupted with verbal threats, she is written up. Prison officials have used the outbursts, and the enemies she’s made, as justification to keep her in solitary confinement, labeling her a “threat to the management and security of the institution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some prisoners in solitary confinement — what CDCR calls restricted housing — are allowed cellmates for company. Skylit has had to cell alone. Some are allowed onto an open yard. But Skylit was designated a potential threat to others, so she has had to exercise in a cage that’s about 12-by-8 feet, often surrounded by other incarcerated people who insult her. When she attends her mental health groups, she is among those who must sit in a cage the size of a telephone booth called a “therapeutic module.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6987940/\">studies \u003c/a>confirm how damaging long-term solitary confinement is to mental health. So it’s no surprise that Skylit has struggled. Records show she has harmed herself on several occasions, once punching the wall until her hand bled. After that incident, for a few weeks in August 2022, she was medicated against her will with high doses of antipsychotic drugs. Too drugged to mount a defense, she was found guilty of multiple rule violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A judge determined the prison violated her civil rights by force-medicating her. For Skylit, it was an important victory. But the whole experience eroded her faith in the prison mental health system. As the months ticked by, she went off all her medications — not just the hormones, but also the ones that treat depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Shattered trust\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s important to note that many cisgender incarcerated people at CCWF with histories of sexual victimization were truly scared of the newly arriving transgender women. Some still are. The fear-mongering from staff and outside anti-trans groups has not helped. But those fears appear to be unfounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED requested discipline data from CCWF. In the two years after the new law took effect, staff did not issue a single rule violation for physical or sexual violence to the trans women who came over from men’s prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, write-ups for violence were common in the rest of the prison population, including for fighting, assault and battery on prisoners and staff, and even inciting a riot. The data also show that the new arrivals under the law were six times more likely than other CCWF prisoners to be punished for behavior that could lead to consensual sex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it happens, there was a violent predator at CCWF. Allegedly, there was more than one and they weren’t transgender women. They were cisgender men, employees of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May 2023, as Skylit struggled to hold onto herself in her solitary cell, she heard the news that Gregory Rodriguez, a longtime guard at CCWF, was facing a 96-count criminal complaint for allegedly sexually assaulting more than a dozen incarcerated women over the course of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’d been allowed to retire in August 2022 while under investigation. In addition to those charges, six women filed lawsuits under Jane Roe or Jane Doe pseudonyms against Rodriguez in federal court, contending he lured them to a suite of offices where there are no cameras and forcibly raped them. One of these alleged assaults took place on May 20, 2022, the same day that the crowd surrounded Skylit and called \u003cem>her\u003c/em> a rapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article280162624.html\">settled those suits\u003c/a> earlier this month for $3.7 million. More lawsuits have been filed alleging sexual assaults by CCWF employees. Four of the named victims are transgender women, Skylit among them. Her \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24018568-skylitsexabusecomplaintaug14_2023\">lawsuit (DOC)\u003c/a> contends that Rodriguez and Pallares, the warden who called her a predator, each demanded sexual favors from her in the spring of 2022 “for the purpose of humiliating, degrading and demeaning” her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For him to have me come into that room, it’s just so dirty,” Skylit said. “I feel dirty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pallares was demoted in January after the Rodriguez scandal broke. Currently, an associate warden at Pleasant Valley State Prison, he declined comment. Prison officials wouldn’t say whether Pallares was under investigation. But in a statement, officials said CDCR investigates all sexual assault allegations, and “resolutely condemns any staff member who violates their oath and shatters the trust of the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘I don’t even understand who I am anymore. I’m full of anger. Hatred, ooh, hatred is huge for me right now. I’m lost, I’m completely lost.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Syiaah Skylit, transgender woman in California prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The totality of Skylit’s experience has left \u003cem>her \u003c/em>shattered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They come to my door every day asking me if I want to take my hormones. No, I don’t want to take no hormones,” she told KQED in March after 10 months of isolation. “I don’t even understand who I am anymore. I’m full of anger. Hatred, ooh, hatred is huge for me right now. I’m lost, I’m completely lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spending more than two years in solitary confinement means she hasn’t had access to the kind of programming that would earn her good-time credits and earlier release, like school, work and vocational training. She has never laid a finger on another prisoner or an officer, but her disciplinary write-ups have nevertheless added more than a year to her original 16-year sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison officials are again recommending that Skylit be returned to a men’s prison. It requires a hearing that’s already been postponed for 17 months. She’s flip-flopped on whether to go back voluntarily. Being stuck in a box is destroying her, she said, and getting back into the general population may help her get out sooner. But with being falsely labeled a rapist, she’s terrified.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They will kill me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If she does end up back in men’s prison, she shared in an emotional phone call, she plans to keep her gender identity secret. To prepare for the possibility, she started working out so she could fight for her life. She sold her earrings. And she cut off all her hair. She’d been growing it out for more than eight years, ever since those trans women in county jail lit a fire inside her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making herself “bald-headed” as she said, was a painful act of surrender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit also threw away the trans-friendly children’s books she’d worked so hard to bring to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told myself, I’m not gonna get emotional or emo with this stuff no more,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A path forward\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s law was meant to protect transgender women, but the culture at CCWF and rising anti-trans fervor all over the country have exposed them to new traumas. Implementation has been slow. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.oig.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Special-Review-No.-22-01.pdf\">report (PDF)\u003c/a> issued in late August by the current inspector general noted a “significant backlog” in transfer requests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of nearly 400 incarcerated people who’ve requested housing transfers under the law — the vast majority transgender women asking to move to women’s prison — more than 300 are still waiting for a committee to hear their case. Many live in daily fear of sexual and physical assault, said A.D. Lewis, an attorney who runs Trans Beyond Bars, a project for the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A transgender man, Lewis regularly communicates with trans-incarcerated people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three dozen or so trans women who made it to CCWF — most during the first six months of implementation — are the vanguard. Many, like Skylit, have suffered. A small number have been transferred to the California Institution for Women, a lower security prison in San Bernardino County, where they say conditions are slightly better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘These systems are so built to destroy people, and if they survive and get out, they’re not better and they’re often much worse.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Jen Orthwein, forensic psychologist, co-founder of Medina Orthwein LLP","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In a statement, CDCR said it is working to implement some of the changes \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24016207-mossgroup-sb132-cdcr-assessment-report\">recommended by outside consultants (DOC)\u003c/a> earlier this year and is committed to providing “a safe, humane, respectful and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated people, including the transgender, non-binary and intersex community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates acknowledge that the cycles of harm continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of respecting trans people’s self-determination and prioritizing their safety, as the law requires,” Lewis said, correctional staff and other incarcerated people have used it “to put a target on trans peoples’ back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after prison officials received KQED’s questions for this story in September, CCWF revoked all phone privileges for Skylit and others in solitary confinement. In an email to KQED after the initial publication of this story, a CDCR official said the revocation of phone privileges was a policy change ending what had been a temporary, more liberal phone privileges policy instituted in the early days of the COVID pandemic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Skylit’s attorney worries about the impact of the trauma on her future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These systems are so built to destroy people, and if they survive and get out, they’re not better and they’re often much worse,” Orthwein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter sent in July 2023 to Newsom, nearly two-dozen advocacy and legal organizations pressing for better treatment for transgender, nonbinary and intersex prisoners \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23991938-tni-coalition-letter-to-governor-newsom-71723pdf-2\">urged clemency (DOC)\u003c/a> for those who have experienced harm in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wiener, meanwhile, expressed deep frustration with the pace of implementation. In response to KQED’s findings, he said he was “horrified to hear how trans women are being treated in women’s prison, both by the prisons and by other inmates. The fact that they’re being treated harshly and slandered, called rapists when they’re not, it’s terrifying and we’re not going to just let this go.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Lee Romney is a longtime journalist who spent 23 years at the \u003c/em>Los Angeles Times\u003cem>. Jennifer Johnson is a former career public defender who helped launch San Francisco’s Behavioral Health Court. This reporting, supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the California Health Care Foundation, is part of a forthcoming podcast they’re co-creating. Called \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.novemberinmysoul.com/\">\u003cem>November In My Soul\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, it explores the way bias makes its way into our intertwined mental health and criminal legal systems.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11964027/california-prisons-fail-to-uphold-transgender-rights-despite-state-law","authors":["byline_news_11964027"],"programs":["news_72","news_26731"],"categories":["news_6188","news_8"],"tags":["news_18538","news_32222","news_2729","news_616","news_3149","news_1629","news_19984","news_28871","news_27626","news_20004","news_25373","news_24732","news_2717","news_1527","news_30804","news_20851","news_30162","news_2486","news_29386"],"featImg":"news_11964041","label":"news_26731"},"news_11957664":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11957664","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11957664","score":null,"sort":[1691591459000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-prisons-have-a-drug-problem-a-strip-search-policy-takes-aim-at-visitors","title":"Advocates Push Back Against California Prisons' Strip-Search Policy","publishDate":1691591459,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Advocates Push Back Against California Prisons’ Strip-Search Policy | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":18481,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>Renee Espinoza thought her first strip search at the hands of a California correctional officer guard would be her last. It happened during a visit to Centinela State Prison to see her incarcerated husband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months later it happened again. And then again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was the same process each time. I sign a paper saying it’s ok to search me, they escort me to the same locker room,” Renee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before each search, she filled out the so-called Form 888, a requirement for each visitor who consents to an unclothed search. The first search felt procedural and normal, she recalled. On the second search, she noticed the female officers in the room had mirrors and used a flashlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the third search, the correctional officer was more aggressive. “She was asking me to spread my genitals wider. And I’m just like, ‘there’s nothing in there!’ How much wider do you need me to open? How much lower do you need me to bend? What else do you need me to do?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Espinoza shared her story last week with other families of state prisoners who are trying to make sense of a proposed change in search policy at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department, which is facing pressure to stem the flow of drugs and cell phones into prisons, plans to make procedural changes that officials said would be minimal and meant to provide more clarity and consistency about the rights for those being searched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only change these regulations implement is in regard to proposed changes to (the state prison system’s) Form 888, which works to include clarity and consistency with existing language describing the search process and the rights of those being searched. The search process itself will remain unchanged,” wrote Alia Cruz, a spokesperson for the corrections agency, in an email.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sharon Dolovich, law professor and director, UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program\"]‘All this does is expand the scope of discretion to make it easier to justify … I suspect they are already strip-searching anyone they want.’[/pullquote]But one of the proposed changes in the regulation includes language that suggests correctional officers could have more discretion to perform a strip search. That change would lower the threshold for an officer to request a search from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates are worried it could lead to unnecessarily invasive interactions between prisoners’ loved ones and correctional officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People who run the visits already have a lot of discretion,” said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor who directs the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program. “All this does is expand the scope of discretion to make it easier to justify … I suspect they are already strip-searching anyone they want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Eric Sapp of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an Oakland-based organization, met with families last week ahead of a scheduled public comment hearing on the regulation. He called the proposed change unlawful, inconsistent with other regulations, and said it was “concerning” that the department doesn’t explicitly say whether touching is allowed during unclothed searches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do think it’s unreasonable that they want to change and harmonize those regulations by lowering ‘probable cause’ to ‘reasonable suspicion’ rather than doing the exact opposite,” he said, suggesting that the standard should remain at probable cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cruz, the department’s spokesperson, said the proposed regulation is not intended to change the threshold for searches. She said the standards for strip and cavity searches would remain “unchanged” and would continue to be used only after less invasive means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unclothed searches are completely voluntary unless a search warrant is presented. Unclothed searches are used very sparingly, and only when all other contraband interdiction efforts have been exhausted,” said Cruz. “Contraband interdiction efforts to be used before an unclothed search is proposed includes walk-through metal detectors and hand-held metal detectors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Declining a search has a consequence for prison visitors. It means they would not get to meet their incarcerated loved ones, which in some cases could waste an hours-long drive to an institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why is the prison search policy coming up now?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s corrections agency put forward the proposed policy six months after an Office of Inspector General audit called attention to the flow of contraband into prisons, including during the pandemic when visitor restrictions were in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found the Department of Corrections had weak contraband prevention efforts in place and ultimately “allowed” the problem to continue. The inspector general urged the department to strengthen oversight of who and what comes into prisons to keep out drugs, including by searching staff more frequently and making more use of narcotic-detecting canines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California state prisons recorded 1,274 overdoses between March 2019 and February 2020. In the following 12 months — after pandemic restrictions took effect — overdoses declined to 796, according to California Correctional Health Care Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the number of overdoses went down, the cases revealed that drugs found their way into prisons even when families couldn’t visit. Some avenues included staff, contractors, official visitors and mail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 2021 and 2022, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/contraband-interdiction/\">64 visitors were arrested\u003c/a> across all state prisons for attempting to bring in contraband. In the same year, six prison employees and 46 non-visitors were also arrested, according to the department’s Office of Research. The number of visitors arrested are down from 286 in 2018 and 186 in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drug delivery methods have gotten more outlandish. Recently two men were charged for using \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-09/drones-drug-smuggling-california-prisons#\">drones to drop drugs, vape pens, MP3 players and phones into prison yards\u003c/a> across seven prison facilities, according to the \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked to comment on the proposed search changes, Shaun Spillane, a spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office, said there is value in the decision to update policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although drugs still made it into prisons while visitation was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that the department have an effective search process for people who visit prisons,” Spillane said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California prison visits as a civil right\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The request to update search policies comes in the midst of the Newsom administration’s campaign to make prisons friendlier to families. He signed a law last month that \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1226\">allows prisoners to be housed in facilities closer\u003c/a> to where their children under 18 live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration in 2021 added a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/news/2021/07/30/california-department-of-corrections-and-rehabilitation-to-launch-third-day-of-in-person-visiting-in-august/\">third day of weekly visitation\u003c/a> at all institutions to make family visits more accessible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research shows that \u003ca href=\"https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/family-ties-during-imprisonment-do-they-influence-future-criminal#:~:text=Five%20empirical%20studies%20of%20the,disciplinary%20infractions%2C%20and%20lower%20recidivism.\">maintaining close family ties while incarcerated\u003c/a> contributes to positive parole outcomes and lowers the likelihood of recidivism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But families say that with intimidating visitor policies in place, they will feel less inclined to visit. Others say they would refuse a search in protest, even if it means losing their visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Close connections to loved ones on the outside is the single biggest predictor of success for re-entry, so why wouldn’t the CDCR try to enhance the experience and enhance the ability for people to visit rather than increasingly burden it?” Dolovich, the professor from UCLA, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angel Rice, the wife of a prisoner and advocate at Empowering Women Impacted by Incarceration, said that after COVID-19, the department started giving families more freedom during the holidays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, children and mothers are allowed to make Christmas ornaments and picture frames and decorate gingerbread houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is a small part of them doing something in a positive manner to make us feel like it’s family,” Rice said. “This is the Department of Rehabilitation. And these little events matter. They make a difference as far as preparing them to come home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature also has advanced a few bills this year to make family ties with prisoners more accessible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One, sponsored by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago of Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB958\">would make visitation a civil right for prisoners\u003c/a> and restrict the Department of Corrections’ power to deny a person from visiting. Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AB-990-PDF.pdf\">vetoed a version of this bill (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2021, on the basis that he thought the legislation could lead to costly litigation from individuals denied visitation for what may be valid security concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the department is scheduled to hold a public comment hearing about the new search regulations. Advocates have already proposed alternatives to the visitor policy, including raising the standard for an officer to request a strip search, or using non-intrusive technologies instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These proposed changes in particular are unnecessary and dangerous, creating grave potential for abuse and causing undue burdens on visitors,” Sapp wrote in a letter to the department days before the public comment period ends. “We urge that significant changes be made before any regulations in this area are adopted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If approved, the department will put in a request for good cause, which would enact the policy immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"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.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1691539867,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":38,"wordCount":1542},"headData":{"title":"Advocates Push Back Against California Prisons' Strip-Search Policy | KQED","description":"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.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/anabelsosa/\">Anabel Sosa\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11957664/california-prisons-have-a-drug-problem-a-strip-search-policy-takes-aim-at-visitors","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Renee Espinoza thought her first strip search at the hands of a California correctional officer guard would be her last. It happened during a visit to Centinela State Prison to see her incarcerated husband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months later it happened again. And then again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was the same process each time. I sign a paper saying it’s ok to search me, they escort me to the same locker room,” Renee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before each search, she filled out the so-called Form 888, a requirement for each visitor who consents to an unclothed search. The first search felt procedural and normal, she recalled. On the second search, she noticed the female officers in the room had mirrors and used a flashlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the third search, the correctional officer was more aggressive. “She was asking me to spread my genitals wider. And I’m just like, ‘there’s nothing in there!’ How much wider do you need me to open? How much lower do you need me to bend? What else do you need me to do?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Espinoza shared her story last week with other families of state prisoners who are trying to make sense of a proposed change in search policy at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department, which is facing pressure to stem the flow of drugs and cell phones into prisons, plans to make procedural changes that officials said would be minimal and meant to provide more clarity and consistency about the rights for those being searched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only change these regulations implement is in regard to proposed changes to (the state prison system’s) Form 888, which works to include clarity and consistency with existing language describing the search process and the rights of those being searched. The search process itself will remain unchanged,” wrote Alia Cruz, a spokesperson for the corrections agency, in an email.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘All this does is expand the scope of discretion to make it easier to justify … I suspect they are already strip-searching anyone they want.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Sharon Dolovich, law professor and director, UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But one of the proposed changes in the regulation includes language that suggests correctional officers could have more discretion to perform a strip search. That change would lower the threshold for an officer to request a search from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates are worried it could lead to unnecessarily invasive interactions between prisoners’ loved ones and correctional officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People who run the visits already have a lot of discretion,” said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor who directs the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program. “All this does is expand the scope of discretion to make it easier to justify … I suspect they are already strip-searching anyone they want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Eric Sapp of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an Oakland-based organization, met with families last week ahead of a scheduled public comment hearing on the regulation. He called the proposed change unlawful, inconsistent with other regulations, and said it was “concerning” that the department doesn’t explicitly say whether touching is allowed during unclothed searches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do think it’s unreasonable that they want to change and harmonize those regulations by lowering ‘probable cause’ to ‘reasonable suspicion’ rather than doing the exact opposite,” he said, suggesting that the standard should remain at probable cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cruz, the department’s spokesperson, said the proposed regulation is not intended to change the threshold for searches. She said the standards for strip and cavity searches would remain “unchanged” and would continue to be used only after less invasive means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unclothed searches are completely voluntary unless a search warrant is presented. Unclothed searches are used very sparingly, and only when all other contraband interdiction efforts have been exhausted,” said Cruz. “Contraband interdiction efforts to be used before an unclothed search is proposed includes walk-through metal detectors and hand-held metal detectors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Declining a search has a consequence for prison visitors. It means they would not get to meet their incarcerated loved ones, which in some cases could waste an hours-long drive to an institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why is the prison search policy coming up now?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s corrections agency put forward the proposed policy six months after an Office of Inspector General audit called attention to the flow of contraband into prisons, including during the pandemic when visitor restrictions were in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found the Department of Corrections had weak contraband prevention efforts in place and ultimately “allowed” the problem to continue. The inspector general urged the department to strengthen oversight of who and what comes into prisons to keep out drugs, including by searching staff more frequently and making more use of narcotic-detecting canines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California state prisons recorded 1,274 overdoses between March 2019 and February 2020. In the following 12 months — after pandemic restrictions took effect — overdoses declined to 796, according to California Correctional Health Care Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the number of overdoses went down, the cases revealed that drugs found their way into prisons even when families couldn’t visit. Some avenues included staff, contractors, official visitors and mail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 2021 and 2022, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/contraband-interdiction/\">64 visitors were arrested\u003c/a> across all state prisons for attempting to bring in contraband. In the same year, six prison employees and 46 non-visitors were also arrested, according to the department’s Office of Research. The number of visitors arrested are down from 286 in 2018 and 186 in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drug delivery methods have gotten more outlandish. Recently two men were charged for using \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-09/drones-drug-smuggling-california-prisons#\">drones to drop drugs, vape pens, MP3 players and phones into prison yards\u003c/a> across seven prison facilities, according to the \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked to comment on the proposed search changes, Shaun Spillane, a spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office, said there is value in the decision to update policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although drugs still made it into prisons while visitation was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that the department have an effective search process for people who visit prisons,” Spillane said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>California prison visits as a civil right\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The request to update search policies comes in the midst of the Newsom administration’s campaign to make prisons friendlier to families. He signed a law last month that \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1226\">allows prisoners to be housed in facilities closer\u003c/a> to where their children under 18 live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration in 2021 added a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/news/2021/07/30/california-department-of-corrections-and-rehabilitation-to-launch-third-day-of-in-person-visiting-in-august/\">third day of weekly visitation\u003c/a> at all institutions to make family visits more accessible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research shows that \u003ca href=\"https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/family-ties-during-imprisonment-do-they-influence-future-criminal#:~:text=Five%20empirical%20studies%20of%20the,disciplinary%20infractions%2C%20and%20lower%20recidivism.\">maintaining close family ties while incarcerated\u003c/a> contributes to positive parole outcomes and lowers the likelihood of recidivism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But families say that with intimidating visitor policies in place, they will feel less inclined to visit. Others say they would refuse a search in protest, even if it means losing their visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Close connections to loved ones on the outside is the single biggest predictor of success for re-entry, so why wouldn’t the CDCR try to enhance the experience and enhance the ability for people to visit rather than increasingly burden it?” Dolovich, the professor from UCLA, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angel Rice, the wife of a prisoner and advocate at Empowering Women Impacted by Incarceration, said that after COVID-19, the department started giving families more freedom during the holidays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, children and mothers are allowed to make Christmas ornaments and picture frames and decorate gingerbread houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is a small part of them doing something in a positive manner to make us feel like it’s family,” Rice said. “This is the Department of Rehabilitation. And these little events matter. They make a difference as far as preparing them to come home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature also has advanced a few bills this year to make family ties with prisoners more accessible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One, sponsored by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago of Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB958\">would make visitation a civil right for prisoners\u003c/a> and restrict the Department of Corrections’ power to deny a person from visiting. Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AB-990-PDF.pdf\">vetoed a version of this bill (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2021, on the basis that he thought the legislation could lead to costly litigation from individuals denied visitation for what may be valid security concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the department is scheduled to hold a public comment hearing about the new search regulations. Advocates have already proposed alternatives to the visitor policy, including raising the standard for an officer to request a strip search, or using non-intrusive technologies instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These proposed changes in particular are unnecessary and dangerous, creating grave potential for abuse and causing undue burdens on visitors,” Sapp wrote in a letter to the department days before the public comment period ends. “We urge that significant changes be made before any regulations in this area are adopted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If approved, the department will put in a request for good cause, which would enact the policy immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11957664/california-prisons-have-a-drug-problem-a-strip-search-policy-takes-aim-at-visitors","authors":["byline_news_11957664"],"categories":["news_6188","news_8"],"tags":["news_1628","news_616","news_2587","news_32994","news_32993"],"affiliates":["news_18481"],"featImg":"news_11957688","label":"news_18481"},"news_11954394":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11954394","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11954394","score":null,"sort":[1688043644000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"thousands-more-people-in-u-s-prisons-can-soon-go-to-college-for-free","title":"Thousands More People in US Prisons Can Soon Go to College for Free","publishDate":1688043644,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Thousands More People in US Prisons Can Soon Go to College for Free | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>The graduates lined up, brushing off their gowns and adjusting each others’ tassels and stoles. As the graduation march played, the 85 men appeared to hoots and cheers from their families. They marched to a stage surrounded by barbed wire fence.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Gerald Massey, college student at Folsom State Prison\"]‘I feel, honestly, that God opened the doors and I just walked through them.’[/pullquote]For these were no ordinary graduates. Their black commencement garb almost hid the aqua and navy-blue prison uniforms they wore as they received college degrees, high school diplomas and vocational certificates earned while they served time at California’s Folsom State Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-education-higher-pell-grant-fce8a300f7d7400283891dc223cbc378\">the federal Pell Grant program\u003c/a>, which offers tuition aid to lower-income undergraduates who have persevered through challenging circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving about 30,000 more students behind bars some $130 million in financial aid per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A solid investment\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The new rules, which overturn a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-relief-pell-grant-ban-972513f72b873d730b1c0a513b5c5b04\">1994 ban on Pell Grants for prisoners\u003c/a>, begin to address decades of policy during the “tough on crime” 1970s–2000 that brought about mass incarceration and stark racial disparities in the nation’s booming prison system that now holds nearly 2 million people behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For people in prison who get their college degrees, including those at Folsom who received grants during an experimental period that started in 2016, it can be the difference between a decent life ahead or ending up back behind bars. Finding a job is difficult with a criminal conviction, and a college degree can be an invaluable advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gerald Massey, one of 11 Folsom students graduating with a degree from the Sacramento State University, has served nine years of a 15-year-to-life sentence for a drunken driving incident that resulted in the death of his close friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last day I talked to him, he was telling me, I should go back to college,” Massey said. “So when I came into prison and I saw an opportunity to go to college, I took it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/EcFLk23792A\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It costs roughly $106,000 per year to incarcerate one adult in California, and about $20,000 to have that person earn a bachelor’s degree through the Transforming Outcomes Project at Sacramento State, or TOPSS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a prisoner receives parole with a degree, never reoffends, gets a job earning a good salary and pays taxes, then the expansion of prison education shouldn’t be a hard sell, said David Zuckerman, the project’s interim director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say that return on investment is better than anything I’ve ever invested in,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Major policy shift\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That doesn’t mean the idea is always popular. Using taxpayer money to give college aid to people who’ve broken the law — especially those convicted of violent crimes — can be controversial. When the Obama administration offered a limited number of Pell Grants to prisoners through executive action in 2015, some prominent Republicans opposed it, arguing in favor of improving the existing federal job training and reentry programs instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ban on Pell Grants for prisoners caused the hundreds of college-in-prison programs that existed in the 1970s and 1980s to go almost entirely extinct by the late 1990s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress voted to lift the ban in 2020, and since then, about 200 Pell-eligible college programs — like the one at Folsom — have been running in 48 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Under the coming expansion, any college can apply to use Pell Grant funding to serve incarcerated students, and, if approved, launch its own program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since entering the White House, President Joe Biden has strongly supported giving Pell Grants to prisoners. That’s a big turnaround — the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, championed by the former Delaware senator, was what barred prisoners from getting Pell Grants in the first place. Biden has since said that he didn’t agree with that part of the compromise legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954450\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954450\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A group of men, wearing blue prison shirts, walk out of a fenced yard, past a mural of a person in a gown, that says: 'More than a number.'\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From right, Jamal Lewis, Lambert Pabriaga and Sherman Dorsey — all college students in prison, majoring in communications — walk to their class at Folsom State Prison on, May 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had 200 students enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs this spring, and has partnered with eight universities across the state. The goal, says CDCR spokesperson Terri Hardy: transforming prisoners’ lives through education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from students dressed in prisoner blues, classes inside Folsom Prison look and feel like any college class. Instructors give incarcerated students the same assignments as they do to pupils back on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘A big accomplishment’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The students in the Folsom classes come from many different backgrounds. They are Black, white, Hispanic, young, middle aged and senior. Massey, who got his communications degree, is of South Asian heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Born in San Francisco to parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan, Massey recalls growing up feeling like an outsider. Although most people of his background are Muslim, his family members belonged to a small Christian community in Karachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In primary school, he was a target for bullies. He remembers, as a teen, seeking acceptance from the wrong people. When he completed high school, Massey joined the Air Force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After 9/11, I went in and some people thought I was a terrorist trying to infiltrate,” he said. “It really bothered me. So when I got out of the military, I didn’t want anything to do with them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massey enrolled in college after one year in the military, but dropped out. Later, he became a certified nursing assistant and held the job for 10 years. He married and had two children.[aside label=\"More on prison education programs\" postID=\"news_11949943,news_11851182,news_11775030\"]But he said his addiction to alcohol and a marijuana habit knocked him off course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was living like a little kid and I had my own little kids,” Massey said. “And I thought if I do the bare minimum, that’s OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said prison forced him to take responsibility for his actions. He got focused, sought rehabilitation for alcoholism and restarted his pursuit of education. He also took up barbering to make money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On commencement day, Massey was the last of his classmates to put on his cap and gown. He was a member of the ceremony’s honor guard — his prison uniform was decorated with a white aiguillette, the ornamental braided cord denoting his military service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a big accomplishment,” Massey said. “I feel, honestly, that God opened the doors and I just walked through them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the ceremony, Massey found his mom, wife and daughter for a long-awaited celebratory embrace. He reserved the longest and tightest embrace for his 9-year-old daughter, Grace. Her small frame collapsed into his outstretched arms, as his wife, Jacq’lene, looked on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so many different facets and things that can happen when you’re incarcerated, but this kept him focused on his goals,” Jacq’lene said. “Having the resources and the ability to participate in programs like that really helped him, but it actually helps us, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s the domino effect — it’s good for our kids to see that. It’s good for me to see that,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to his communications degree, Massey earned degrees in theology and biblical studies. His post-release options began to materialize ahead of graduation. State commissioners have deemed him fit for parole, and he expects to be released any day. A nonprofit group that assists incarcerated military veterans met with him in May to set up transitional housing, food, clothing and health care insurance for his eventual reentry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954449\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954449\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man in a blue prison shirt sits at a table in front of a laptop in a classroom, while another man, of South Asian descent, also in a prison shirt, looks over his shoulder. \" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gerald Massey, center standing, works with Sherman Dorsey in a classroom at Folsom State Prison on May 3, 2023. Many more prisoners like Massey and Dorsey will have opportunities to leave prison with bachelor’s degrees, when new federal rules on financial aid for higher education take effect in July. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s a radio station I listen to, a Christian radio station, that I’ve been thinking one day I would like to work for,” Massey said. “They are always talking about redemption stories. So I would like to share my redemption story, one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Work in progress\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>College-in-prison programs aren’t perfect. Many prisons barely have enough room to accommodate \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/prison-pandemic-shutdowns-rehabilitation-education-programs-d0aab915c2cd130543025f5bffeb6672\">the few educational and rehabilitation programs\u003c/a> that already exist. Prisons will have to figure out how to make space and get the technology to help students succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Racial imbalances in prison college enrollment and completion rates are also a growing concern for advocates. People of color make up a disproportionate segment of the U.S. prison population, but have been underrepresented in the college programs, compared to their white peers, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.vera.org/publications/second-chance-pell-six-years-of-expanding-access-to-education-in-prison\">a six-year Vera Institute of Justice study\u003c/a> of Pell Grant experimental programs in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prisoners with a record of good behavior get preference for the rehabilitative and prison college programs. Black and Hispanic prisoners are more likely to face discipline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re tying discipline to college access, then … those folks are not going to have as much access,” said Margaret diZerega, who directs the Vera Institute’s Unlocking Potential initiative, which is focused on expanding college programs in prison. “Let’s get them into college and set them on a different trajectory.”[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Margaret diZerega, director of the Vera Institute’s Unlocking Potential initiative\"]‘Let’s get them into college and set them on a different trajectory.’[/pullquote]It’s not yet clear if the Pell Grant expansion will grow or narrow racial disparities. The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to the AP’s inquiry on this issue before publication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For America to be a country of second chances, we must uphold education’s promise of a better life for people who’ve been impacted by the criminal justice system,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a written statement to the AP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pell Grants will “provide meaningful opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation, reduce recidivism rates, and empower incarcerated people to build brighter futures for themselves, their families, and our communities,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Redemption personified\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Of the 11 men getting Bachelor’s degrees in the jubilant ceremony at Folsom Prison last month, one was no longer a prisoner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Love, who had paroled from Folsom Prison five months earlier, came back to give the valedictory speech. He wore a suit and tie underneath his cap and gown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To his classmates, Love is a tangible example of what is possible for their own redemption journeys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After serving more than 35 years in prison, the 55-year-old is currently enrolled in a Master’s program at Sacramento State. He’s been hired as a teaching aide and will teach freshmen communications students in the fall, and is also working as a mentor with Project Rebound, an organization that assists formerly incarcerated people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have just as much value as anyone in the community,” he told the other prisoners in his speech. “You are loved. I love you, that’s why I’m here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954448\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954448\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A group of men of mixed ages, wearing graduation caps and gowns on top of blue prison gowns, gather in a large room.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Incarcerated graduates, who finished various educational and vocational programs in prison, wait for the start of their graduation ceremony at Folsom State Prison on May 25, 2023. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For many of the prisoners, it was the graduation that their families never imagined they’d get to see. One 28-year-old attendee met his father in person for the first time, as his dad received a GED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the ceremony wrapped, Robert Nelsen, the outgoing president of Sacramento State University, choked up with tears. On the cusp of retirement, this was the last ceremony he would preside over as a university president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is one final tradition and that is to move the tassel — not yet, not yet, not yet — from the right to the left,” Nelsen instructed, amid laughter from the audience and graduates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The left side is where your heart is,” the university president said. “When you move that tassel, you are moving education and the love of education into your heart forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ceremony was done. Many graduates joined their loved ones inside a visitation hall for slices of white and chocolate sheet cake and cups of punch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The graduates walked back to their housing units with more than just hope for what their futures might bring. One day, they’ll walk out of the prison gates with college degrees — ones that don’t bear an asterisk revealing they earned them while in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ll walk toward a second chance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A federal program allowing US prisoners to earn college degrees in prison is about to expand exponentially, providing financial aid to thousands more students behind bars. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1688018264,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":50,"wordCount":2262},"headData":{"title":"Thousands More People in US Prisons Can Soon Go to College for Free | KQED","description":"A federal program allowing US prisoners to earn college degrees in prison is about to expand exponentially, providing financial aid to thousands more students behind bars. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"nprByline":"Aaron Morrison\u003cbr>The Associated Press","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11954394/thousands-more-people-in-u-s-prisons-can-soon-go-to-college-for-free","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The graduates lined up, brushing off their gowns and adjusting each others’ tassels and stoles. As the graduation march played, the 85 men appeared to hoots and cheers from their families. They marched to a stage surrounded by barbed wire fence.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘I feel, honestly, that God opened the doors and I just walked through them.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Gerald Massey, college student at Folsom State Prison","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For these were no ordinary graduates. Their black commencement garb almost hid the aqua and navy-blue prison uniforms they wore as they received college degrees, high school diplomas and vocational certificates earned while they served time at California’s Folsom State Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-education-higher-pell-grant-fce8a300f7d7400283891dc223cbc378\">the federal Pell Grant program\u003c/a>, which offers tuition aid to lower-income undergraduates who have persevered through challenging circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving about 30,000 more students behind bars some $130 million in financial aid per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A solid investment\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The new rules, which overturn a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-relief-pell-grant-ban-972513f72b873d730b1c0a513b5c5b04\">1994 ban on Pell Grants for prisoners\u003c/a>, begin to address decades of policy during the “tough on crime” 1970s–2000 that brought about mass incarceration and stark racial disparities in the nation’s booming prison system that now holds nearly 2 million people behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For people in prison who get their college degrees, including those at Folsom who received grants during an experimental period that started in 2016, it can be the difference between a decent life ahead or ending up back behind bars. Finding a job is difficult with a criminal conviction, and a college degree can be an invaluable advantage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gerald Massey, one of 11 Folsom students graduating with a degree from the Sacramento State University, has served nine years of a 15-year-to-life sentence for a drunken driving incident that resulted in the death of his close friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last day I talked to him, he was telling me, I should go back to college,” Massey said. “So when I came into prison and I saw an opportunity to go to college, I took it.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/EcFLk23792A'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/EcFLk23792A'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>It costs roughly $106,000 per year to incarcerate one adult in California, and about $20,000 to have that person earn a bachelor’s degree through the Transforming Outcomes Project at Sacramento State, or TOPSS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a prisoner receives parole with a degree, never reoffends, gets a job earning a good salary and pays taxes, then the expansion of prison education shouldn’t be a hard sell, said David Zuckerman, the project’s interim director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say that return on investment is better than anything I’ve ever invested in,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Major policy shift\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That doesn’t mean the idea is always popular. Using taxpayer money to give college aid to people who’ve broken the law — especially those convicted of violent crimes — can be controversial. When the Obama administration offered a limited number of Pell Grants to prisoners through executive action in 2015, some prominent Republicans opposed it, arguing in favor of improving the existing federal job training and reentry programs instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ban on Pell Grants for prisoners caused the hundreds of college-in-prison programs that existed in the 1970s and 1980s to go almost entirely extinct by the late 1990s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress voted to lift the ban in 2020, and since then, about 200 Pell-eligible college programs — like the one at Folsom — have been running in 48 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Under the coming expansion, any college can apply to use Pell Grant funding to serve incarcerated students, and, if approved, launch its own program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since entering the White House, President Joe Biden has strongly supported giving Pell Grants to prisoners. That’s a big turnaround — the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, championed by the former Delaware senator, was what barred prisoners from getting Pell Grants in the first place. Biden has since said that he didn’t agree with that part of the compromise legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954450\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954450\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A group of men, wearing blue prison shirts, walk out of a fenced yard, past a mural of a person in a gown, that says: 'More than a number.'\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561834858-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From right, Jamal Lewis, Lambert Pabriaga and Sherman Dorsey — all college students in prison, majoring in communications — walk to their class at Folsom State Prison on, May 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had 200 students enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs this spring, and has partnered with eight universities across the state. The goal, says CDCR spokesperson Terri Hardy: transforming prisoners’ lives through education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from students dressed in prisoner blues, classes inside Folsom Prison look and feel like any college class. Instructors give incarcerated students the same assignments as they do to pupils back on campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘A big accomplishment’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The students in the Folsom classes come from many different backgrounds. They are Black, white, Hispanic, young, middle aged and senior. Massey, who got his communications degree, is of South Asian heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Born in San Francisco to parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan, Massey recalls growing up feeling like an outsider. Although most people of his background are Muslim, his family members belonged to a small Christian community in Karachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In primary school, he was a target for bullies. He remembers, as a teen, seeking acceptance from the wrong people. When he completed high school, Massey joined the Air Force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After 9/11, I went in and some people thought I was a terrorist trying to infiltrate,” he said. “It really bothered me. So when I got out of the military, I didn’t want anything to do with them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massey enrolled in college after one year in the military, but dropped out. Later, he became a certified nursing assistant and held the job for 10 years. He married and had two children.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"More on prison education programs ","postid":"news_11949943,news_11851182,news_11775030"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But he said his addiction to alcohol and a marijuana habit knocked him off course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was living like a little kid and I had my own little kids,” Massey said. “And I thought if I do the bare minimum, that’s OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said prison forced him to take responsibility for his actions. He got focused, sought rehabilitation for alcoholism and restarted his pursuit of education. He also took up barbering to make money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On commencement day, Massey was the last of his classmates to put on his cap and gown. He was a member of the ceremony’s honor guard — his prison uniform was decorated with a white aiguillette, the ornamental braided cord denoting his military service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a big accomplishment,” Massey said. “I feel, honestly, that God opened the doors and I just walked through them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the ceremony, Massey found his mom, wife and daughter for a long-awaited celebratory embrace. He reserved the longest and tightest embrace for his 9-year-old daughter, Grace. Her small frame collapsed into his outstretched arms, as his wife, Jacq’lene, looked on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so many different facets and things that can happen when you’re incarcerated, but this kept him focused on his goals,” Jacq’lene said. “Having the resources and the ability to participate in programs like that really helped him, but it actually helps us, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s the domino effect — it’s good for our kids to see that. It’s good for me to see that,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to his communications degree, Massey earned degrees in theology and biblical studies. His post-release options began to materialize ahead of graduation. State commissioners have deemed him fit for parole, and he expects to be released any day. A nonprofit group that assists incarcerated military veterans met with him in May to set up transitional housing, food, clothing and health care insurance for his eventual reentry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954449\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954449\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man in a blue prison shirt sits at a table in front of a laptop in a classroom, while another man, of South Asian descent, also in a prison shirt, looks over his shoulder. \" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561715729-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gerald Massey, center standing, works with Sherman Dorsey in a classroom at Folsom State Prison on May 3, 2023. Many more prisoners like Massey and Dorsey will have opportunities to leave prison with bachelor’s degrees, when new federal rules on financial aid for higher education take effect in July. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s a radio station I listen to, a Christian radio station, that I’ve been thinking one day I would like to work for,” Massey said. “They are always talking about redemption stories. So I would like to share my redemption story, one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Work in progress\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>College-in-prison programs aren’t perfect. Many prisons barely have enough room to accommodate \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/prison-pandemic-shutdowns-rehabilitation-education-programs-d0aab915c2cd130543025f5bffeb6672\">the few educational and rehabilitation programs\u003c/a> that already exist. Prisons will have to figure out how to make space and get the technology to help students succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Racial imbalances in prison college enrollment and completion rates are also a growing concern for advocates. People of color make up a disproportionate segment of the U.S. prison population, but have been underrepresented in the college programs, compared to their white peers, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.vera.org/publications/second-chance-pell-six-years-of-expanding-access-to-education-in-prison\">a six-year Vera Institute of Justice study\u003c/a> of Pell Grant experimental programs in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prisoners with a record of good behavior get preference for the rehabilitative and prison college programs. Black and Hispanic prisoners are more likely to face discipline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re tying discipline to college access, then … those folks are not going to have as much access,” said Margaret diZerega, who directs the Vera Institute’s Unlocking Potential initiative, which is focused on expanding college programs in prison. “Let’s get them into college and set them on a different trajectory.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘Let’s get them into college and set them on a different trajectory.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Margaret diZerega, director of the Vera Institute’s Unlocking Potential initiative","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It’s not yet clear if the Pell Grant expansion will grow or narrow racial disparities. The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to the AP’s inquiry on this issue before publication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For America to be a country of second chances, we must uphold education’s promise of a better life for people who’ve been impacted by the criminal justice system,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a written statement to the AP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pell Grants will “provide meaningful opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation, reduce recidivism rates, and empower incarcerated people to build brighter futures for themselves, their families, and our communities,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Redemption personified\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Of the 11 men getting Bachelor’s degrees in the jubilant ceremony at Folsom Prison last month, one was no longer a prisoner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Love, who had paroled from Folsom Prison five months earlier, came back to give the valedictory speech. He wore a suit and tie underneath his cap and gown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To his classmates, Love is a tangible example of what is possible for their own redemption journeys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After serving more than 35 years in prison, the 55-year-old is currently enrolled in a Master’s program at Sacramento State. He’s been hired as a teaching aide and will teach freshmen communications students in the fall, and is also working as a mentor with Project Rebound, an organization that assists formerly incarcerated people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have just as much value as anyone in the community,” he told the other prisoners in his speech. “You are loved. I love you, that’s why I’m here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954448\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11954448\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A group of men of mixed ages, wearing graduation caps and gowns on top of blue prison gowns, gather in a large room.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/AP23175561470530-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Incarcerated graduates, who finished various educational and vocational programs in prison, wait for the start of their graduation ceremony at Folsom State Prison on May 25, 2023. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For many of the prisoners, it was the graduation that their families never imagined they’d get to see. One 28-year-old attendee met his father in person for the first time, as his dad received a GED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the ceremony wrapped, Robert Nelsen, the outgoing president of Sacramento State University, choked up with tears. On the cusp of retirement, this was the last ceremony he would preside over as a university president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is one final tradition and that is to move the tassel — not yet, not yet, not yet — from the right to the left,” Nelsen instructed, amid laughter from the audience and graduates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The left side is where your heart is,” the university president said. “When you move that tassel, you are moving education and the love of education into your heart forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ceremony was done. Many graduates joined their loved ones inside a visitation hall for slices of white and chocolate sheet cake and cups of punch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The graduates walked back to their housing units with more than just hope for what their futures might bring. One day, they’ll walk out of the prison gates with college degrees — ones that don’t bear an asterisk revealing they earned them while in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ll walk toward a second chance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11954394/thousands-more-people-in-u-s-prisons-can-soon-go-to-college-for-free","authors":["byline_news_11954394"],"categories":["news_6188","news_8"],"tags":["news_616","news_17725","news_30805","news_32876","news_32874","news_32875","news_1471","news_32877"],"featImg":"news_11954407","label":"news"},"news_11943855":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11943855","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11943855","score":null,"sort":[1679014156000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"were-turning-a-new-page-infamous-san-quentin-prison-to-be-transformed-into-rehabilitation-center","title":"'Turning a New Page': Infamous San Quentin Prison to Become Hub for Rehabilitation","publishDate":1679014156,"format":"standard","headTitle":"KQED News","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Updated 1:30 p.m., Friday\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Quentin, California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/sq/\">oldest state prison\u003c/a>, and among its most notorious, will be transformed into a rehabilitative facility, where incarcerated people at lower risk of misconduct can receive education and training in preparation for their release, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the proposal, the Marin County lockup, which currently \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/174/2023/03/Tpop1d230315.pdf\">incarcerates about 3,900 people\u003c/a>, including 546 on death row, will be transformed by 2025 into what Newsom hopes will be a world-class rehabilitation center based loosely on a Scandinavian model of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We want to be the preeminent restorative justice facility in the world — that’s the goal,\" Newsom said Friday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo1caB_7Sok\">during a visit to the prison\u003c/a>, which he said will be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Full details of the plan were not immediately clear, but Newsom said it would build on the innovative programs San Quentin is already known for, such as an accredited junior college and an \u003ca href=\"https://sanquentinnews.com/\">award-winning newspaper\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.earhustlesq.com/\">podcast\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new direction — which Newsom dubbed the “California Model” — will be aimed at ensuring people inside the prison receive the tools and resources they need — from therapy to education and job training — to succeed in the outside world and steer clear of additional criminal behavior, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transformation will be data-driven, Newsom said, and inspired by “wildly successful” approaches in places like Norway, which has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/science-norway-europe-oslo-crime-bdd56073c42dc2066640095d7e62b048\">maximum-security Norwegian prisons\u003c/a>, cells often look more like dorm rooms with additional furniture such as chairs, desks and even TVs, and incarcerated people have access to kitchens and activities like basketball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11732471/gov-newsom-to-end-death-penalty-by-executive-order-political-fallout-likely\">four years after Newsom declared a moratorium on the death penalty in California\u003c/a>, with all remaining people on San Quentin’s death row \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-death-row-closed-prisons-gavin-newsom-d59ae606239abadb2dfa03be71e54649\">slated to eventually be transferred\u003c/a> to other prisons in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sentences are not being changed, I want to make that crystal clear,” said Newsom, a staunch opponent of the death penalty. He noted that those currently on San Quentin's death row will be assessed individually to determine risk of violent behavior, with the goal of integrating them all into the general prison population by the end of 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s prison population has been falling for years, the result of criminal justice reforms instituted after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136579580/california-is-ordered-to-cut-its-prison-population\">ordered the state to slim down its overcrowded lockups\u003c/a>. Newsom already shut down one prison in 2021, with a second scheduled to shutter this summer and a third set to close by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11888753,news_11942302 \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">align\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">='\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">left' \u003c/span> label='More on the history of San Quentin']Just the first two closures will save the state about $300 million a year, officials estimate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom's attempted transformation of San Quentin — a facility located on a scenic point jutting into the San Francisco Bay, in one of the wealthiest areas of the state — will be his most visible prison reform to date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prison, which has the largest death row population in the country, is widely recognized for having housed a slew of high-profile people convicted of heinous offenses, including cult leader Charles Manson and Scott Peterson, and was the site of violent uprisings in the 1960s and '70s. More recently, however, the facility has garnered attention for adopting some of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/prison-university-project#:~:text=The%20Prison%20University%20Project%20at,earn%20college%20credits%2C%20tuition%20free.\">most innovative prison education and training programs\u003c/a> in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re making progress. But we’re not doing justice to the ‘R’ in ‘CDCR,’” Newsom said, referring to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state's sprawling prison system. “We have to be in the homecoming business. It’s not just about rehabilitation, it’s about homecoming. You want folks coming back feeling better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although California's recidivism rate has declined in recent years, it remains stubbornly high: \u003ca href=\"https://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2018-113.pdf\">On average nearly 50% of people who leave the prison system reoffend\u003c/a>, according to a 2019 state audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where’s the public safety in that?” said Newsom. He noted that 800 people are released from San Quentin every year, and the primary goal should be keeping them from committing another crime and ending back in the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of criminal justice reform cheered the announcement. Among them was Jay Jordan, CEO of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a national network of crime survivors that advocates for less incarceration and more support for both criminal offenders and victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan spent years in California prisons after being convicted of robbery at the age of 18. Behind bars, he was able to receive therapy for the first time in his life, and that alone helped change everything, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making San Quentin an institution entirely dedicated to providing that kind of support marks a huge shift in California’s approach to punishment and rehabilitation, Jordan added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It signifies that we're turning a new page in California's history. We're not just going to warehouse people in prison and then they get out and they're not successful,” he said. “We’re actually going to have solutions where people … are going to places to get what they need to stop the cycle of crime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the details remain to be worked out, including specific timelines and how to physically transform a 171-year-old building full of concrete cells and outdated buildings into a rehabilitative space. Newsom included $20 million in his January budget proposal to aid in San Quentin’s transition, and he plans to name a group of experts to oversee the changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Seeman, who advised both Newsom and his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, on criminal justice policy, said the plan will not only save money but eventually make California safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You close the prisons — but this is the next step to make sure it’s successful,” he said. “We have the ability, due to the lower population, to realize savings from prison closures, but that in and of itself can’t be the only approach. We have to pair it with efforts to reduce recidivism, and initiatives like this are ways to do that at relatively low cost to taxpayers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeman said the Norway model Newsom is so inspired by is based on a wholly different philosophy of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think in other countries such as Norway, they view the loss of liberty as the punishment,” he said. “They’re more intentional about what is done during folks’ time in custody to make sure they come out better neighbors and productive members of society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means using the time people spend behind bars to help them move past all the things that drove them to commit crimes in the first place, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction (March 17): This story originally stated there were nearly 700 people on death row in San Quentin. In fact, there are currently a total of 668 people — including 21 women — on death row in all of California. Of those, 546 men are now on San Quentin's death row. Since the \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_66,_Death_Penalty_Procedures_(2016)\">passage of Proposition 66\u003c/a> in 2016, 101 other people formerly on death row have been transferred to other institutions. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from KQED's Matthew Green and The Associated Press.\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Under a plan Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to announce Friday, the state will attempt to transform the 171-year-old Marin County lockup into a world-class rehabilitation center based loosely on a Scandinavian criminal justice model.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1679097977,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":30,"wordCount":1261},"headData":{"title":"'Turning a New Page': Infamous San Quentin Prison to Become Hub for Rehabilitation | KQED","description":"Under a plan Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to announce Friday, the state will attempt to transform the 171-year-old Marin County lockup into a world-class rehabilitation center based loosely on a Scandinavian criminal justice model.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11943855/were-turning-a-new-page-infamous-san-quentin-prison-to-be-transformed-into-rehabilitation-center","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Updated 1:30 p.m., Friday\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Quentin, California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/sq/\">oldest state prison\u003c/a>, and among its most notorious, will be transformed into a rehabilitative facility, where incarcerated people at lower risk of misconduct can receive education and training in preparation for their release, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the proposal, the Marin County lockup, which currently \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/174/2023/03/Tpop1d230315.pdf\">incarcerates about 3,900 people\u003c/a>, including 546 on death row, will be transformed by 2025 into what Newsom hopes will be a world-class rehabilitation center based loosely on a Scandinavian model of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We want to be the preeminent restorative justice facility in the world — that’s the goal,\" Newsom said Friday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo1caB_7Sok\">during a visit to the prison\u003c/a>, which he said will be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Full details of the plan were not immediately clear, but Newsom said it would build on the innovative programs San Quentin is already known for, such as an accredited junior college and an \u003ca href=\"https://sanquentinnews.com/\">award-winning newspaper\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.earhustlesq.com/\">podcast\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new direction — which Newsom dubbed the “California Model” — will be aimed at ensuring people inside the prison receive the tools and resources they need — from therapy to education and job training — to succeed in the outside world and steer clear of additional criminal behavior, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transformation will be data-driven, Newsom said, and inspired by “wildly successful” approaches in places like Norway, which has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/science-norway-europe-oslo-crime-bdd56073c42dc2066640095d7e62b048\">maximum-security Norwegian prisons\u003c/a>, cells often look more like dorm rooms with additional furniture such as chairs, desks and even TVs, and incarcerated people have access to kitchens and activities like basketball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11732471/gov-newsom-to-end-death-penalty-by-executive-order-political-fallout-likely\">four years after Newsom declared a moratorium on the death penalty in California\u003c/a>, with all remaining people on San Quentin’s death row \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-death-row-closed-prisons-gavin-newsom-d59ae606239abadb2dfa03be71e54649\">slated to eventually be transferred\u003c/a> to other prisons in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sentences are not being changed, I want to make that crystal clear,” said Newsom, a staunch opponent of the death penalty. He noted that those currently on San Quentin's death row will be assessed individually to determine risk of violent behavior, with the goal of integrating them all into the general prison population by the end of 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s prison population has been falling for years, the result of criminal justice reforms instituted after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136579580/california-is-ordered-to-cut-its-prison-population\">ordered the state to slim down its overcrowded lockups\u003c/a>. Newsom already shut down one prison in 2021, with a second scheduled to shutter this summer and a third set to close by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11888753,news_11942302","label":"More on the history of San Quentin \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">align\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">='\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">left' \u003c/span>"},"numeric":["\u003cspan","style=\"font-weight:","400;\">align\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan","style=\"font-weight:","400;\">='\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan","style=\"font-weight:","400;\">left'","\u003c/span>"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Just the first two closures will save the state about $300 million a year, officials estimate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom's attempted transformation of San Quentin — a facility located on a scenic point jutting into the San Francisco Bay, in one of the wealthiest areas of the state — will be his most visible prison reform to date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prison, which has the largest death row population in the country, is widely recognized for having housed a slew of high-profile people convicted of heinous offenses, including cult leader Charles Manson and Scott Peterson, and was the site of violent uprisings in the 1960s and '70s. More recently, however, the facility has garnered attention for adopting some of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/prison-university-project#:~:text=The%20Prison%20University%20Project%20at,earn%20college%20credits%2C%20tuition%20free.\">most innovative prison education and training programs\u003c/a> in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re making progress. But we’re not doing justice to the ‘R’ in ‘CDCR,’” Newsom said, referring to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state's sprawling prison system. “We have to be in the homecoming business. It’s not just about rehabilitation, it’s about homecoming. You want folks coming back feeling better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although California's recidivism rate has declined in recent years, it remains stubbornly high: \u003ca href=\"https://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2018-113.pdf\">On average nearly 50% of people who leave the prison system reoffend\u003c/a>, according to a 2019 state audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where’s the public safety in that?” said Newsom. He noted that 800 people are released from San Quentin every year, and the primary goal should be keeping them from committing another crime and ending back in the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of criminal justice reform cheered the announcement. Among them was Jay Jordan, CEO of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a national network of crime survivors that advocates for less incarceration and more support for both criminal offenders and victims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan spent years in California prisons after being convicted of robbery at the age of 18. Behind bars, he was able to receive therapy for the first time in his life, and that alone helped change everything, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making San Quentin an institution entirely dedicated to providing that kind of support marks a huge shift in California’s approach to punishment and rehabilitation, Jordan added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It signifies that we're turning a new page in California's history. We're not just going to warehouse people in prison and then they get out and they're not successful,” he said. “We’re actually going to have solutions where people … are going to places to get what they need to stop the cycle of crime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the details remain to be worked out, including specific timelines and how to physically transform a 171-year-old building full of concrete cells and outdated buildings into a rehabilitative space. Newsom included $20 million in his January budget proposal to aid in San Quentin’s transition, and he plans to name a group of experts to oversee the changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Seeman, who advised both Newsom and his predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, on criminal justice policy, said the plan will not only save money but eventually make California safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You close the prisons — but this is the next step to make sure it’s successful,” he said. “We have the ability, due to the lower population, to realize savings from prison closures, but that in and of itself can’t be the only approach. We have to pair it with efforts to reduce recidivism, and initiatives like this are ways to do that at relatively low cost to taxpayers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeman said the Norway model Newsom is so inspired by is based on a wholly different philosophy of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think in other countries such as Norway, they view the loss of liberty as the punishment,” he said. “They’re more intentional about what is done during folks’ time in custody to make sure they come out better neighbors and productive members of society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means using the time people spend behind bars to help them move past all the things that drove them to commit crimes in the first place, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction (March 17): This story originally stated there were nearly 700 people on death row in San Quentin. In fact, there are currently a total of 668 people — including 21 women — on death row in all of California. Of those, 546 men are now on San Quentin's death row. Since the \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_66,_Death_Penalty_Procedures_(2016)\">passage of Proposition 66\u003c/a> in 2016, 101 other people formerly on death row have been transferred to other institutions. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story includes reporting from KQED's Matthew Green and The Associated Press.\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11943855/were-turning-a-new-page-infamous-san-quentin-prison-to-be-transformed-into-rehabilitation-center","authors":["3239"],"categories":["news_8","news_13"],"tags":["news_18538","news_616","news_22276","news_16","news_17968","news_486","news_23"],"featImg":"news_11892562","label":"news"}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. 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As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. 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You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn","officialWebsiteLink":"/mindshift/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"2"},"link":"/podcasts/mindshift","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"}},"morning-edition":{"id":"morning-edition","title":"Morning Edition","info":"\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. 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