Category: CCWP In the News

CCWP In the News

Advocates urge governor to commute all life sentences

L.A. Wave Newspaper

October 13, 2026

Wave Staff

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌ Contributing Writer

SACRAMENTO — The members of the Drop Life Without Parole, a grassroots coalition and sentencing reform group, along with other advocacy organizations, are asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to commute the sentences of more than 5,000 individuals serving life sentences in California before he leaves office.

Drop Life Without Parole, along with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, the Anti-Violence, Safety and Accountability Project, human rights advocates and family members of incarcerated people, called for the release of California prisoners serving life without parole during a Sept. 29 news conference and rally on the west steps of the State Capitol.

Amber Rose Howard, the executive director of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, said those serving life without parole already play a vital role in the broader push for commutations.

“We are here today because we care so much about ending life without parole sentencing,” Howard said. “So many people serving life without parole are the reason why that’s been able to happen. The programs, services, and all of the things that happen inside (of prisons) that rehabilitate (the incarcerated) started many years ago by folks with life without parole. They have proven that we can change ourselves. They paved the way to get ourselves free.”

Californians United for a Responsible Budget is a Black-led statewide coalition of more than 100 grassroots organizations dedicated to shrinking the state’s prison system and redirecting public spending from corrections to community care.

Among advocates and incarcerated people, life without parole is often described as “death by incarceration” or the “other death penalty.”

The calls for commutations come as Newsom is reportedly holding discussions with key advisers about sparing the lives of all 563 prisoners on California’s death row before leaving office in January. According to a number of Capitol insiders and California Black Media sources close to the governor’s office, Newsom has been considering commuting their death sentences to life imprisonment without parole, a move that would represent the largest mass death row commutation in modern U.S. history. 

Newsom, who imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019, has not made a final decision. The reported discussions are separate from advocates’ demands for clemency for more than 5,000 prisoners already serving life without parole.

California ranks third in the United States for the total number of people serving life without parole sentences, according to a 2021 report by UC Irvine’s Department of Criminology, Law and Society. The state currently has 5,134 people serving life without the possibility of parole sentences.

Roughly 68% of those serving life without parole in the state are Black or Latino, 62% were 25 or younger at the time of their offense, and 71% were first-time convicted, according to data cited by the Drop Life Without Parole Coalition.

According to Newsom’s office, he has granted 276 pardons, 169 commutations and 43 reprieves during his time in office as of April of this year. The grantees were recommended for clemency by elected officials, correctional staff, including a former prison warden, medical professionals, teachers, and community and faith leaders.

Newsom leaves office in January when his second term ends.

“The governor weighs numerous factors in clemency cases, including an applicant’s self-development since the offense, if the grant is consistent with public safety, and the impact of a grant on the community, including crime victims and survivors,” Newsom’s office said in a statement last April.

Criminal justice experts claim that hope is the most vital protective factor against despair and suicide for individuals who carry the sentence. From the perspective of former prisoners, they argue, restoring or sustaining a sense of hope, is a mechanism that allows them to prove to themselves and society that they are not defined solely by their worst mistake.

Opposition to commuting life-without-parole sentences in California has come from victims’ rights groups, law enforcement organizations and some victims’ families. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Crime Victims United and the Peace Officers Research Association of California have argued that expanding opportunities for commutation or resentencing undermines the finality of sentences and promises made to victims’ families.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and its allies have also challenged new California Board of Parole hearing regulations that provide a process for recommending resentencing or commutation for some incarcerated people, including those serving life without parole sentences.

“Understand what is at stake for those who were promised that life without the possibility of parole meant exactly that,” the Crime Victims United said in a statement opposing California state policies on commutation.

Barbara Chavez, an Outside Policy Fellow for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, champions criminal justice reform and campaigns to end life without parole sentences.

Opposition to commuting life-without-parole sentences in California has come from victims’ rights groups, law enforcement organizations and some victims’ families. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Crime Victims United and the Peace Officers Research Association of California have argued that expanding opportunities for commutation or resentencing undermines the finality of sentences and promises made to victims’ families.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and its allies have also challenged new California Board of Parole hearing regulations that provide a process for recommending resentencing or commutation for some incarcerated people, including those serving life without parole sentences.

“Understand what is at stake for those who were promised that life without the possibility of parole meant exactly that,” the Crime Victims United said in a statement opposing California state policies on commutation.

Barbara Chavez, an Outside Policy Fellow for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, champions criminal justice reform and campaigns to end life without parole sentences.

CCWP In the News

“No Time to Wait”: The Unseen Costs of Aging in California’s Women’s Prisons

Roughly 30% of California’s prison population is past age 50– and that number is increasing every year.

It costs 2-3x more to incarcerate an elderly person compared to the general population. That is an annual cost of $255,000–$383,00 per elderly person.

What are the unseen costs of aging in prison?

Thank you:

UC Berkeley Law Policy Clinic

California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Uncommon Law

Featuring:

  • Jane Dorotik
  • Colby Lenz
  • Mychal Macias
  • Devan Shea
  • Maiya Zwerling
  • Caroline McGinnis
  • LaVelma Byrd
  • Rosemary Dyer

Video / Interview / Edit Chisato Hughes

Produced by UC Sentencing Project

Music Blue Dot Sessions

CCWP In the News

Warden at Central California Women’s Prison Ousted Amid Sexual Abuse Scandal

 
 
Christopher Alam

Warden’s Demotion Comes One Month After Feds Found an ‘Unbroken Pattern’ of Sexual Abuse at the Prison

Anissa De La Cruz is no longer warden of the Central California Women’s Facility as of Tuesday. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says she will become a correctional administrator at nearby Valley State Prison next month.

The move comes one month after the U.S. Department of Justice found a “unbroken pattern” of sexual assault and retaliation at the facility. The Justice Department began investigating the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino nearly two years ago after hundreds of incarcerated women filed legal claims alleging sexual exploitation by staff and an officer was arrested for sexually abusing at least 22 women.

Elizabeth Nomura is a formerly incarcerated advocate with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. She says the issue of sexual assault in prisons is bigger than one person.

Read the full story from KQED here.

CCWP In the News

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE FOR INCARCERATED SURVIVORS

DOJ INVESTIGATION CONFIRMS WIDESPREAD SEXUAL ABUSE IN CDCR WOMEN’S PRISONS

On August 13, 2026 the U.S. Department of Justice released an investigative report on two California women’s prisons confirming what people inside these facilities and their advocates have known for decades: that CDCR has long violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of prisoners incarcerated at CIW and CCWF by failing to protect them from widespread, systemic sexual abuse and harassment by prison staff. As detailed in the DOJ report, released on August 13, 2026, CDCR as well as officials at CCWF and CIW have shown a pattern and practice of deliberate indifference towards the egregious and flagrant risk of sexual harm by prison staff and have subjected prisoners to cruel and unusual punishment. The DOJ also found that CDCR violated the Fourteenth Amendment rights to bodily privacy of those incarcerated at CIW and CCWF.

For decades, survivors of staff sexual abuse at CIW and CCWF have bravely reported prison staff to CDCR for widespread sexual abuse of prisoners. CDCR has ignored complaints and retaliated against those who reported staff for sexual abuse. They have resisted advocates’ efforts to advocate for survivors and our proposals for systemic improvements. In the two and a half years since the release of the Sexual Abuse Response and Prevention Working Group Community Report to the Legislature, CDCR has failed to implement all but one of the recommendations.

The DOJ report describes countless incidents of staff sexual abuse where CDCR, CIW, and CCWF failed to take action against sexually predatory staff and failed to prevent further sexual abuse. The DOJ also acknowledges the severe retaliation that survivors face after reporting staff for sexual abuse and how that retaliation prevented more survivors from reporting their abuse.

The DOJ now makes many of the same recommendations from the 2024 Community Report that were ignored by CDCR. Given the DOJ report, CDCR has no choice but to work respectfully alongside advocates to remedy these constitutional violations.

The DOJ’s investigation confirms that CDCR’s prisons are unsafe, retraumatizing, and retaliatory for survivors of staff sexual abuse, the vast majority of who suffered sexual abuse before coming to prison. Given CDCR’s inability to provide a safe and rehabilitative environment for survivors, advocates urge immediate release for those who have suffered prison staff abuse.

The following organizations issued statements in response:

  • From Amika Mota, Executive Director of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition: “ We recognize the incredible courage it took for survivors to provide testimony for the DOJ’s investigation and we call upon the DOJ and CDCR to take immediate action to protect survivors from further retaliation following the DOJ’s report. Accountability cannot end with reforming the conditions under which survivors remain incarcerated. California must bring survivors home. Anything less leaves people trapped inside with their assailants, in the very system the federal government has now found is failing to protect them from sexual abuse.”
  • From Leesa Nomura, formerly incarcerated membership organizer for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners: “CDCR must immediately make changes based on the proposal that our working group made in 2024! As survivors, we will not accept such egregious violations of our constitutional rights and constant traumatization of our lives! Ironically, the same abusive prison staff culture occurred at FCI Dublin. Dublin was a federal facility which was overseen by the DOJ and had to be shut down and is now under a consent decree to enforce required changes. If prison officials on all levels cannot provide safe environments for the people who live inside their facilities, survivors need to be released into environments where true safety and rehabilitation can be provided.
  • From Cynthia Totten, Deputy Executive Director at Just Detention International: “Sexual violence in prison is not only just a horrifying crime – it is a completely preventable one. CDCR officials knew that incarcerated people were being sexually abused, and they took the side of the abusers. The DOJ’s investigative report is just the first step in addressing the rampant sexual abuse in California’s women’s prisons. The state must overhaul the culture that allowed this crisis to go on unchecked for so many years. And it must release the survivors whose constitutional rights they continually fail to protect.”
  • From PREVAIL: “PREVAIL stands in solidarity with the survivors who courageously came forward and with those who have spent years advocating for safety, dignity, and accountability within California’s women’s prisons. Sexual violence is an abuse of power in any setting, and incarceration should never mean surrendering the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and safety. Survivors deserve to be believed, protected from retaliation, and supported in their healing. These findings must lead to meaningful and lasting change, not simply acknowledgment of the harm that has occurred. PREVAIL calls for transparency, accountability, survivor-centered reforms, and immediate protections that ensure every person in custody is treated with dignity and is safe from sexual abuse, harassment, and retaliation.”
  • From Alisa Bierria, co-founder of Survived & Punished: “Whether survivors experience sexual violence before prison or during prison, CDCR has failed survivors repeatedly and deliberately. CDCR did not only fail to protect survivors, they actively protected conditions of sexual violence. Freeing survivors is the only way to move forward.”
  • From David Lee, Deputy Director of ValorUS®: “No one deserves to experience sexual violence and those that do, should be able to heal on their terms, not be forced to stay in the same conditions in which they were harmed. Incarcerated people who experience sexual violence deserve strong prevention policies that are effectively implemented.”
  • From Jenny Huang, Director of the UC Davis School of Law’s Civil Rights Clinic: “The DOJ findings confirm what incarcerated people & advocates have known for years: CDCR’s prisons for women are unsafe and retraumatizing for survivors of sexual abuse by prison staff. It is past time for CDCR to release survivors of staff sexual abuse so they can safely recover and rehabilitate in their community.”
CCWP In the News

Journalist, Elder Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Perpetual Detention Unjust, Human Rights Groups Appeal to United Nations

Abolitionist Law Center

July 28, 2026
CONTACT:
Connease Warren, Abolitionist Law Center, 713-304-8990, connease@alcenter.org

PHILADELPHIA—For more than 44 years, U.S. citizen Mumia Abu-Jamal has been arbitrarily detained in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Today, Abolitionist Law Center and a national coalition of other human rights organizations – American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Release Aging People in Prison Campaign – submitted a petition to a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention seeking relief. The submission provides evidence of the state of Pennsylvania violating international standards by consistently denying Mr. Abu-Jamal a fair trial and appellate process, by applying torturous conditions of confinement, and condemning him to a death by incarceration sentence that prevents him from ever leaving prison alive.

Mr. Abu-Jamal, a 72-year-old award-winning broadcast journalist and prolific author, has been incarcerated for more than four decades, since December 1981. He was arrested and charged with murdering a police officer after being found at the scene, also shot. After being convicted and given the death penalty, he was held in solitary confinement on death row (1983-2011) for 29 years, a gross violation of the international Mandela Rules limiting solitary confinement to 15 days. Throughout, Mr. Abu-Jamal has been targeted for his political expression, associations, and his race—prior to his arrest, at trial, and over the course of his incarceration, appeals, and postconviction proceedings, including repeated attempts to censor and silence his political writings and speech.

“Mumia’s case exemplifies the racism endemic to the criminal punishment system in Philadelphia in the 1970s and 1980s, and the use of incarceration as a tool of political repression,” said Saleem Holbrook, Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center, the public interest law firm that represents him. Police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct plagued his conviction. Mr. Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, according to Amnesty International, “failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.”

The UN submission clearly documents the racial discrimination Mr. Abu-Jamal has been subject to along with deprivation of his right to represent himself, deprivation of adequate time and facilities to mount a proper defense, and political interference.

“At every step, the case against Mumia violated fundamental legal principles. He would be free  if courts applied the law to his case instead of playing politics with the Constitution,” said Abolitionist Law Center Legal Director Bret Grote. “We are seeking a ruling from the United Nations that exposes the bias, racism, and cruelty of the judicial system in Mumia’s case.”

Mr. Abu-Jamal has diligently pursued a new and fair trial through appellate and post-conviction proceedings in both state and federal court, but has exhausted all legal avenues for relief. Though his death penalty was overturned, Mr. Abu-Jamal’s sentence of life without parole – also known as death by incarceration (DBI) – is torture: a cruel, inhumane, and degrading punishment that violates international law.

“The inherent arbitrariness of an indefinite DBI sentence, which allows no periodic review of continuing need or reasonableness, in combination with Mr. Abu-Jamal’s many years served to date, advanced age, declining health, and lack of risk to the public violates multiple provisions of international law,” said Samah Sisay, Staff Attorney at Center of Constitutional Rights.

Now an elderly man, Mr. Abu-Jamal has endured multiple near-death medical crises, including hepatitis C, congestive heart failure, a preventable hyperglycemic emergency that threatened his life, and multiple ophthalmic conditions that, due to inadequate medical care by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, pose a significant risk of permanent blindness.

As the submission states, Mr. Abu-Jamal is one of a staggering number of individuals in the United States condemned to die in prison. As of 2020, more than 200,000 people in the United States were serving life or virtual life sentences, of whom nearly 8,300 were in Pennsylvania; more than 56,000 people in the U.S. are serving formal sentences of life without parole, of whom more than 5,000 are in PA. Black people comprise only about 1 in 9 of incarcerated people in PA, but 2/3 of those serving life sentences. A growing consensus of international authorities has condemned DBI sentencing in the U.S. as violating international prohibitions on racial discrimination. In November 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Committee recommended that the United States “establish a moratorium on the imposition of sentences to life imprisonment without parole.”

The July 28 submission to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention can be found at alcenter.org.

###

The Abolitionist Law Center is a public interest law firm inspired by the struggle of political and politicized prisoners, and organized for the purpose of abolishing class- and race-based mass incarceration in the United States. Abolitionist Law Center litigates on behalf of people whose human rights have been violated in prison, educates the public about the evils of mass incarceration, and works to develop a mass movement against the American punishment system by building alliances and nurturing solidarity across social divisions. Follow Abolitionist Law Center on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky.

The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Follow the Center for Constitutional Rightson Facebook, @theCCR on Twitter/X, and @ccrjustice on Instagram, and @ccrjustice.org on BlueSky.