By Heather Harris, Public Policy Institute of California, June 12, 2020
The COVID-19 crisis triggered an eight-week moratorium on prison admissions that helped reduce California’s prison population to a level not seen for more than 25 years. On May 26—as demonstrations decrying police violence and systemic racial inequality spread across the nation—California resumed admitting prison inmates.
Resuming admissions without also accelerating prison releases could reverse the latest reductions in prison population, and further increase overcrowding in an environment challenged by a deepening COVID-19 outbreak. In the weeks since May 26, when the suspension was lifted, the number of actively infected prisoners increased by nearly 150%— from less than 1,000 cases to more than 2,400 cases.
Admissions to prisons within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had been halted March 24 on orders from Governor Newsom. Between the end of March and the end of May, the prison population dropped by 5,766 inmates—from 117,328 to 111,562—including those in camps. California has not seen numbers this low since 1993—prior to the passage of Proposition 184 in 1994, which enacted California’s three strikes law and hastened the rise in the prison population.
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