Advocates say inhumane conditions and no-contact policies at the CoreCivic-run facility are intentionally designed to pressure people detained there into signing deportation orders.
n this episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa speaks with independent journalist Victoria Valenzuela, who reports for a wide range of news outlets on incarceration in California and Louisiana. Victoria’s recent articles shed light on the inhumane conditions at California City Detention Center—specifically its no-contact visitation policy, making it the only detention center in California to enact such a rule. CCDC is operated by the for-profit corporation CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America), an organization with a history marred by systemic violence that is currently capitalizing on Trump’s mass deportation policies to expand its detention contracts.
In the second half of the conversation, Mansa and Victoria discuss the circumstances of incarcerated women domestic violence survivors in California and the potential for prison abolition. They note that the state’s incarcerated women population has decreased from roughly 11,000 to 3,700 over two decades.
SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he plans to change all California death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
The Governor’s letter to the people of California is available here.
California’s largest law enforcement union is urging voters to oust a state Supreme Court justice who it argues is moving to reopen criminal cases that it believes should stay closed.
The messaging in the Peace Officers Research Association of California’s campaign against Justice Kelli Evans echoes the only time in state history that voters booted California Supreme Court justices in a retention election. That happened in 1986 when voters swept out three justices over their rulings in death penalty cases. All three were appointed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who was philosophically opposed to the death penalty but did not take an official action to overturn it.
PORAC leaders acknowledge that this effort likely will not persuade enough voters to reject Evans, who Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed to the court in 2022. She is on the ballot for a retention election that would allow her to serve a 12-year-term.
As public health professionals from across the nation gather at APHA 2026 under the theme “Together We Thrive: Health Across the Lifespan,” conversations focus on solutions to the challenges of an aging population. One session turned attention to a group often overlooked in those discussions: older women behind bars.
At two of California’s women’s prisons — Central California Women’s Facility and California Institution for Women — 740 incarcerated women were ages 50 and older in 2025, representing roughly one-fifth of the prison’s population, according to a presentation at APHA 2026.
Incarcerating an older woman in a California state prison costs more than $380,000 annually, according to the report presented by Pam Fadem, a coordinating committee member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. That is two to three times the cost of incarcerating a younger person, largely because of increased healthcare needs.
“We think this is beyond belief and a waste of taxpayer money — but mostly, it is a waste of human life and dignity,” Fadem said.
Researchers have linked each year spent in prison to a two-year reduction in life expectancy. For Chyrl Lamar, medical care during her incarceration has had lasting consequences. After being repeatedly shuffled between doctors, she lacked consistent care from a provider familiar with her heart condition, resulting in inadequate treatment, she said on Monday.
Lamar’s experience reflects a broader problem: 88% of older women incarcerated in California report experiencing medical abuse or neglect, according to the report.
“This isn’t simply a medical issue,” Lamar said. “It’s about being heard; it’s about human dignity and having confidence that someone inside will listen and pay attention to what’s happening to me.”
Now out of prison, Lamar takes heart medication that she will need for the rest of her life.
The challenges facing older women in prison reflect a broader national trend: The U.S. prison population is aging. In 1991, people ages 50 and older accounted for just 3% of the incarcerated population. By 2021, that share had grown to 15%. If current trends continue, one in three people incarcerated in the U.S. could be ages 50 and older by 2030.
The fast-aging population is the result of decades of “tough-on-crime” policies that have had a disproportionate impact on low-income people and people of color. In California, a quarter of incarcerated women are Black, despite representing just 6% of the state’s overall population, found a 2023 report presented by Renae Badruzzaman, senior project manager of Health Instead of Punishment at Health in Partnership.
Structural oppression underlies the background for most women in prison, her report found. Up to 90% of people incarcerated in women’s prisons report having experienced prior emotional, physical or sexual abuse. These factors raise the risk of incarceration, largely due to a lack of resources for mental health support services and non-carceral violence intervention.
Despite the substantial resources required to incarcerate older adults, they pose relatively little risk to public safety. Fewer than 8% of people ages 50 to 59 return to prison within three years of release. Among those ages 60 and older, that figure drops to less than 5%.
“Releasing 740 elders from the women’s prisons will help to address the advancing crisis of a rapidly aging prison population,” Fadem said.
Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison, according to a statement released by her attorneys.
Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said in a statement.
“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery,” her attorneys said in a statement released Saturday.