Corrections and rehabilitation: state policy.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary and digest do not provide specific dates for when the changes will take effect.

Corrections and Rehabilitation: State Policy

This law changes the main goal of prison from just keeping people safe to also helping them grow as individuals, requires prisons to make living conditions closer to normal life while ensuring safety, asks prisons to work with community groups to offer more programs for prisoners, and needs all staff to learn about making prison life better.

What This Bill Does

• Changes the main goal of adult incarceration from just public safety to also promoting personal growth for all residents in the department’s care.
• Requires prisons to make living conditions as close to normal life as possible without leading to inhumane conditions, focusing on normalization and dynamic security principles.
• Directs the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to facilitate access for community-based programs that offer educational, rehabilitative, and restorative justice programs.
• Develops training for all correctional staff on the principles of normalization and dynamic security.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who are in prison or will be in the future.
• Prison workers and those who run the prisons.
• Community organizations that work with prisons.

Terms To Know

Normalization

Making prison life as close to normal life outside of prison as possible, without leading to inhumane conditions.

Dynamic Security

A way to keep prisoners and staff safe while allowing for better living conditions in prisons.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify when these changes will start happening.
• It is unclear how much it will cost to train all prison workers on the new principles.

Official Summary Text

SB 551, Cortese.
Corrections and rehabilitation: state policy.
Under existing law, the Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of sentencing is public safety achieved through punishment, rehabilitation, and restorative justice, and that programs should be available for incarcerated persons, including educational, rehabilitative, and restorative justice programs that are designed to promote behavioral change and to prepare all incarcerated persons for successful reentry into the community. Existing law directs the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to maintain a mission statement consistent with these principles.
This bill would make legislative findings and declarations relating to corrections and rehabilitation, including, among others, that the Legislature recognizes that life in prison can never be the same as life in a free society, and that active steps should be taken to make
conditions in prison as close to normal life as possible, aside from loss of liberty, to ensure that this normalization does not lead to inhumane prison conditions. The bill would direct the department to maintain a mission statement consistent with the principles of normalization and dynamic security, and would require the department to facilitate access for community-based programs.
Existing law provides that the primary objective of adult incarceration is to facilitate the successful reintegration of the individuals in the department’s care back to their communities equipped with the tools to be drug-free, healthy, and employable members of society by providing education, treatment, and rehabilitative and restorative justice programs in a safe and humane
environment.
This bill would include that the primary objective of adult incarceration is to promote personal growth for all residents in the department’s care. The bill would also provide that the department should develop training for all correctional staff on the principles of normalization and dynamic security in order to meaningfully effectuate these principles.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF