Category: Updates on Prisons

Updates on Prisons

This New Law Will Make It Easier for Californians to Visit Family in Prison

BOLTS

October 9, 2026

Victoria Valenzuela   

After driving five hours to visit her son in prison, Anita Wills, 80, found herself in an impossible situation: fish her bra wire out of the fabric using only a paperclip, or be turned away from visiting with her son. Those were the rules at the California State Prison in Lancaster that day—bra required, but underwire bra forbidden. While the wire was so small that Wills didn’t even know it was there, the visiting staff would not let her see her son until she removed it. They claimed to not have scissors, giving her only a paperclip. 

Wills cried as she struggled for over an hour to remove the wire with the paper clip, and says she heard guards laughing because they knew it was impossible. But giving up would mean she couldn’t see her son, and that the long drive and hotel costs would have been for nothing, so she tried for as long as the guards would let her, to no avail.

“I did not get a chance to see my son that day,” Wills told Bolts. “Knowing that he was on the other side of those bars, that was just really hurtful. The state that I live in and pay taxes in treats people like that. It’s so inhumane.”

Read the full story from Bolts here.

Updates on Prisons

Incarcerated Women Are Pushing for Decarceration, Not “Trauma-Informed” Prisons

Truthout
By  

As abolitionists across the United States push for decarceration, a backlash has emerged in the form of new prison construction, demonstrating the resiliency of mass incarceration. Several new women’s prisons are being built despite a growing chorus of voices arguing that prisons only inflict more harm on women who have already endured abuse and trauma.

Last year, a new prison to hold nearly 1,000 women was opened in Louisiana to replace the prison that flooded almost a decade earlier. What the news media described as a “campus” (a word used to conflate imprisonment with voluntary settings like colleges and corporate parks) includes a rehabilitation center, classrooms, and a delivery room for women forced to have their babies in prison. In Maine, a new “reentry center” for women was completed in 2017. “Ideally we’d like to say that we don’t need prisons,” then-Gov. Paul LePage said at the grand opening. “But if we’re going to have prisons, this is the type of prison that we need…”

Truthout spoke with activists fighting the construction of new women’s prisons in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Illinois, who said they recognized similar trends. In Vermont, a proposal by the legislature for a new prison for women in Essex was halted last year when activists convinced the local planning commission to rule against a zoning request. In Massachusetts, after calls for a prison moratorium failed, Gov. Maura Healey announced in 2025 a plan to “re-imagine” the women’s prison there. In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Corrections launched in 2024 what is dubbed “RISE IDOC” to build two new prisons, including a new women’s prison with a “gender-responsive” design.

Read the full article from Truthout here.

Updates on Prisons

Releases, Not Transfers, Must Be at the Center of Prison Closure Plans

The Appeal
and

This story was co-published with Truthout.

For decades, the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) in Norco has been known for its deplorable conditions: extreme heat, pest infestations, unreliable programming, and water so unsafe that guards refuse to drink it. As residents of CRC, we experienced these conditions firsthand. So we celebrated when the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced in August 2025 that CRC had been named for closure. Almost one year later, as of July 29, 2026, CRC has officially been emptied. Today, the empty prison remains in “warm shutdown” mode, costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

The announcement of CRC Norco’s closure was a testament to years of community advocacy to reduce the imprisoned population, expose systemic issues in CRC that are reflective of those throughout the prison system, and highlight possibilities for non-carceral reinvestment in California’s Riverside County. Imprisoned people, loved ones, and advocates had exposed the toxicity in CRC for decades — leading to the prison being marked for closure in 2012 by the CDCR under then-Gov. Jerry Brown. In 2021, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) named CRC Norco as the top state prison to close based on a survey of more than 2,000 imprisoned people. We connected with CURB in 2024 to share testimony about CRC’s horrific conditions and failing infrastructure.

 

Read the full story from Truthout here. 

Updates on Prisons

US DOJ Finds ‘Unbroken Pattern’ of Sexual Abuse by California Prison Staff

KQED

 
BY: Madi Bolaños

California prison officials have failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse and harassment by staff for years, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a new report.

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.

The department reviewed 350 allegations of sexual misconduct, interviewed prisoners and looked at body-worn camera footage. 

In a report released Thursday, investigators said they found an “unbroken pattern” of staff sexual assault dating back over 20 years at California’s two women’s prisons. The department concluded that prison officials knew women faced a substantial risk of sexual abuse but failed to adequately protect them.

Read the full story from KQWD here.

Updates on Prisons

Justice Department Finds California Women’s Prisons Violate the Constitution by Failing to Protect Female Prisoners from Sexual Abuse by Staff

Office of Public Affairs – US Department of Justice 

August 13, 2026

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Justice Department announced today that it has reasonable cause to believe that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, and the California Institution for Women (CIW) in Chino are violating the U.S. Constitution by failing to protect female prisoners from sexual abuse and harassment by staff.

Investigators uncovered a longstanding pattern of sustained staff sexual misconduct, inadequate safeguards, failures in confidential reporting, improper investigative practices, and insufficient accountability measures. The Department concluded that these systemic deficiencies grievously violate prisoners’ rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Further, CDCR, CCWF, and CIW fail to adequately and effectively implement the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

“Female prisoners have the constitutional right to be free from sexual assault and harassment by prison staff,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice’s investigation revealed that California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation knew of repeated incidents of sexual assault and harassment against female prisoners, and failed to protect them. This deliberate indifference to the suffering of female prisoners at the hands of prison staff is illegal, and the Civil Rights Division, in partnership with the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Eastern and Central Districts of California, will end this brutal abuse.”

Read the full Press Release from the DOJ here.