Nearly one-third of California prisoners released early during the pandemic by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration ended up back in prison, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation data.
The records, obtained and analyzed by CalMatters, offer the first glimpse into what happened to some of the former prisoners after state leaders chose to shrink a prison population imperiled by the spread of COVID in close quarters.
At the time, the governor and the corrections department did not widely share the full list of the names and crimes of the thousands of people they sent home early, leaving the public in the dark about the scope of an unprecedented prisoner release effort.
In total, between April 2020 and December 2021, the corrections department freed about 14,800 people early. Roughly 4,600 had gone back to prison as of Jan. 31, 2025.
The data shows that most prisoners who were released early steered clear of serious crimes that would land them back in prison. Thirty people returned to prison for first or second-degree murder offenses, representing fewer than 1% of the group.
The top three reasons people went back to prison were illegally possessing a gun (14% of all cases), assault (10%), and burglary (9%). Vehicle theft, second-degree robbery and domestic abuse each accounted for about 4 to 5% of offenses. The data only includes the offense that gave the prisoner the longest sentence.
Using news reports, interviews, press releases, statements from district attorneys and data from the corrections department, CalMatters pieced together the details of what happened to some of the thousands who went back to state prison.
Isaias Alfaro was released in August 2020, after serving time for taking a vehicle without consent. Two years later, he was back incarcerated for burglary.
Alfaro said in an interview that he was “doing his damnest” to stay out of trouble and “live a better life” after he was released early. “I was going to school and staying on the right track,” he said. “I started using drugs again, and it was only a matter of time before I began having criminal activity in my life and ended up back in jail.” He said he wished the counties had more resources to help people who are struggling with drug and alcohol addictions.
Alfaro was released in April 2023. He’s now living in Los Angeles with family and looking for work, he said.
Santiago Contreras, 44, said she told prison officials she didn’t want to be released. As a transgender woman, “I had nowhere to go,” she said. “It was hard to survive.”
Contreras was in prison for stalking, vandalism and assault, according to the corrections department.
State officials released her to San Diego County probation officials for supervision, and she was given an ankle monitor, she said. A few months later, she said, she started drinking again and cut the monitor. Contreras was on the run when she strangled 43-year-old Tonya Molina to death inside a San Diego motel room, she said. Contreras is now serving 15 years-to-life, the San Diego District Attorney’s Office said.
The corrections department and other criminal justice agencies define recidivism as when someone is convicted of a new crime within three years of their release. The department mainly uses conviction data to measure recidivism, not return-to-prison rates, according to an agency spokesperson. CalMatters’ data only includes return-to-prison rates, and it’s over a much longer period of time, nearly five years.
According to our analysis, 23% of people released early during the pandemic returned to prison in less than three years. There’s no baseline rate for returning to prison to compare that figure over a similar time period. It’s slightly higher than the 17% of people who returned to prison within three years after being released in 2019-2020, according to the department’s most recent recidivism report.
Across the country, researchers at the Robina Institute for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice estimated that nearly 81,000 people were released from prisons in 34 states and the federal prison system during the pandemic. In 2022, National Public Radio reported that of more than 11,000 people released from federal prison, 442 had returned to prison; 17 committed new crimes. In Oregon, the governor commuted the sentences of about 950 people between July 2020 through October 2021. Of those, about 12% ended up back incarcerated within two years of their release, a 2023 report found.
Newsom’s office declined to comment on this story.
Corrections department spokesperson Albert Lundeen said that the higher return-to-prison rates among those who were released early weren’t uncommon.
“People eligible for expedited release were non-serious/non-violent, a demographic with a higher tendency to recidivate,” he wrote in an email. “It is expected that return rates for this subgroup would be higher than overall recidivism rates.”
Some left prison with “non-serious/non-violent crimes,” only to commit more serious offenses shortly afterwards.
Jammerieo Austin, 29, was released in April 2020, after serving time for possessing/purchasing cocaine for sale, the corrections department said. He was out of prison for a little over a year when he shot and killed 40-year-old Karmen Anderson while a four-year-old sat in the backseat, according to the San Diego District Attorney’s office. Austin’s now serving a life sentence without parole, the corrections department said.
In Los Angeles County, David Grace was released from prison in August 2020 after a burglary conviction. In June 2023, he went back to prison after pleading no contest to killing someone while drunk driving, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office and data from the corrections department. In a news release, the Long Beach Police Department said Grace hit a 62-year-old father who was pushing a van alongside his daughter.
During the pandemic, the early-release policy targeted people who were a few months away from leaving prison, serving a sentence for non-violent offenses, and those who did not have to register as sex offenders, the agency noted on its website. The agency also “excluded people serving a sentence for domestic violence,” Lundeen said.
The prisoners who’d earned credits while incarcerated for things like good behavior, completing milestones, rehabilitation and education saw some of their sentences reduced.
Francisco Gomez, 40, had been in and out of state prison over more than a decade when he was sent back in 2017 for “unlawful sex with a victim under 16 and subject over 21,” according to the corrections department and court records. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, but he didn’t have to register as a sex offender. Madera County Supervising Deputy District Attorney Eric DuTemple said a rape conviction would require registration, but consensual sex with a minor who’s 16 years or older “would not be a registered offense, as in this case.”
The state released Gomez in August 2020. He was sent back to prison in February 2022 after being sentenced to eight years for burglary. Gomez is expected to be released again in July, state data show.
In Tuolumne County, David Pacheco was first sentenced to prison for eight years in 2012 for employing a minor to sell a controlled substance and a few other crimes. He was released on parole in 2016, went back in 2019, and was released again in July 2020 during the pandemic.
Within the year, Pacheco was arrested for using “Snapchat to send and receive sexually explicit images and videos with juveniles in exchange for marijuana products,” according to a Facebook post from the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s office.
Using colorful packages that looked like candy and snacks, Pacheco sold drugs to more than 100 minors, ranging from 8th graders to high schoolers, the sheriff’s office said. In June 2021, he was back in prison after being sentenced to 30 years for “rape with force / violence / fear of a minor 14 years of age or older,” among other crimes, according to the corrections department.
Keith Breazell, 35, was sent to prison for more than 15 years in 2014 for assault with a semiautomatic firearm and a gang enhancement, among other charges, the corrections department said. He was released on parole on July 21, 2020.
In an interview, Breazell said that about a week after leaving state prison, he panicked and got into a high-speed chase with police. Soon after, in a separate incident, he was caught with a firearm. He was sent to federal prison and, when released, Breazell went back to state prison to serve time for fleeing the police, he said. Breazell’s expected to be released in December.
As the pandemic forced the state to quickly release people, thousands were released into communities with limited services to support them while the state was under strict shelter-in-place orders.
Terah Lawyer, president of CROP, a nonprofit that helps people reenter society, said the lack of support may be one reason people ended up back in prison.
“There was no funding available to … pick people up from prison, bring them to housing beds that were not available, provide them with any type of case management system,” Lawyer said. “This was a very, very trying time in our community.”
The early releases from state prisons and local jails, combined with changes in court policies like no bail for most misdemeanors and some felonies, led to population declines in the prison and jail systems. The Public Policy Institute of California found that the prison population dropped by 23% between March 2020 and February 2021 — its lowest point in more than three decades. The average daily jail population was down by 17% over the previous year by March 2021, a report from the California Policy Lab shows.
Soon, stories began making the news of recently released people going on to commit more crimes. At least one sheriff complained publicly that people released early from prison were winding up in county jails.
Then the public started growing concerned about local crime.
A recent study from the Public Policy Institute of California found that the drop in property-crime arrests after the pandemic led to a rise in commercial burglaries.
Some of the initial political blowback came with the ousting of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. Since then, more district attorneys have been ousted and Californians overwhelmingly supported the state getting tougher on crime with the passage of Proposition 36, which allows felony charges for some drug and theft crimes and creates a new category of crime called “treatment-mandated” felonies.
Mohamed Al Elew contributed data reporting to this story.
