(1) Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish and implement a community treatment program, under which a woman sentenced to state prison who has one or more children under 6 years of age is eligible for release with the woman's children to a public or private facility in the community suitable to their needs. Existing law authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to enter into contracts with public or private agencies to provide housing, sustenance, supervision, and services, subject to the approval of the Director of General Services. This bill would remove the requirement that the contracts be approved by the Director of General Services. The bill would authorize the department to enter into long-term contracts, not to exceed 10 years, for the transfer of prisoners to, or placement of prisoners in, facilities under contract pursuant to these provisions. The bill would require that the secretary advertise potential contracts under these provisions and would require that priority be given to certain community treatment programs, as specified. (2) Under existing law, the primary responsibilities of the State Public Defender are to represent those persons who are entitled to representation at public expense in specified proceedings, to provide assistance and training to specified attorneys, and to engage in related efforts for the purpose of improving the quality of indigent defense. This bill would exempt contracts entered into or amended by the State Public Defender to implement those duties from specified contract register requirements, specified small business procurement, disabled veteran business, and public contracting provisions, and from the review or approval of any division of the Department of General Services. (3) Existing law creates within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation the Prison Industry Authority and Prison Industry Board. Existing law continues in existence within the department the Prison Industry Authority and the Prison Industry Authority Board, among other entities. This bill would revise these provisions to rename the Prison Industry Authority as the California Correctional Training and Rehabilitation Authority, and to rename the Prison Industry Board as the California Correctional Training and Rehabilitation Board. The bill would make these provisions operative only if SB 857 of the 2025–26 Regular Session is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2026. (4) Existing law, the California Public Records Act, generally requires public records to be open for inspection by the public. Existing law provides numerous exceptions to this requirement. Under existing law, the personnel records of peace officers and custodial officers are confidential and not subject to public inspection. Existing law provides certain exemptions to this confidentiality, including the reports, investigations, and findings of certain incidents involving the use of force by a peace officer. Existing law makes records relating to an investigation conducted by a local detention facility into a death incident, as defined, available to public inspection, as specified. Existing law establishes the Board of State and Community Corrections, with the mission of, among other things, promoting legal and safe conditions for youth, inmates, and staff in local detention facilities. Existing law creates the position of Director of In-Custody Death Review within the board. This bill would authorize the director to have access to, and authority to, examine and reproduce records of any local detention facility, as specified. By increasing duties on local governments, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (5) Existing law, the California Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act of 2009, authorizes each county to establish a Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, and provides annual payments to the counties for purposes relating to improving local probation supervision practices and capacities. Existing law continuously appropriates the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund for these incentive payments. Existing law, as part of those annual payments, requires the Director of Finance, in consultation with certain entities, to annually calculate a statewide performance incentive payment and a county performance incentive payment for each eligible county. Existing law requires the director to calculate those payments based on, among other things, the cost to the state to incarcerate in a contract facility and supervise on parole an offender who fails local supervision and is sent to prison. This bill would instead make that calculation based on the per capita cost to the state to incarcerate in a state prison and supervise on parole an offender who fails local supervision and is sent to prison, calculated pursuant to specified formulas. Existing law also requires that calculation to be based on an estimate of the number of felons on probation, mandatory supervision, and postrelease community supervision each county successfully prevented from being incarcerated in state prison, determined based on the reduction in the county's probation and mandatory supervision failure rate as calculated annually for that year and the county's failure rate from the previous year. This bill would instead calculate that estimate based on the actual number of individuals under one of those forms of supervision admitted to state prison from each county in the previous calendar year subtracted from each county's baseline admission to prison rate for those forms of supervision, as specified, multiplied by the average daily population of those forms of supervision for each county in the previous calendar year. Existing law additionally requires the Director of Finance to calculate a statewide performance incentive payment for each county using a formula based on the county's return to prison rate and the county's highest year of funding that the county received from the California Community Incentive Grant Program from the 2011–12 fiscal year to the 2014–15 fiscal year, inclusive, as specified. This bill would repeal those provisions. The bill would additionally, beginning with the 2025–26 fiscal year, appropriate $103,668,010 to the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund from the General Fund, to be distributed to counties, as specified. The bill would decrease a county's appropriation pursuant to these provisions by a factor of 10% for each percentage point the county return to prison rate exceeds its baseline return to prison rate, as specified. Existing law additionally requires the Director of Finance to calculate a statewide performance incentive payment based on the number of felons on probation, mandatory supervision, or postrelease community supervision that were successfully prevented from being incarcerated in the state prison, multiplied by 35% of the state's costs to incarcerate a prison felony offender in a contract facility, as specified. This bill would instead multiply that number by 25% of the average of the state's per capita cost to incarcerate a prison felony offender in a state prison and supervise an individual on parole. By changing the distribution of continuously appropriated funds and making a new appropriation, this bill would make an appropriation. (6) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above. (7) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.
The Budget Act of 2018 appropriated $50,000,000 to the Board of State and Community Corrections for a grant program, known as the Adult Reentry Grant Program, for the purpose of awarding competitive grants to community based organizations to support offenders formerly incarcerated in state prison. The Budget Act of 2018 allocated a specified amount of those funds for, among other things, rental assistance, rehabilitation of existing property or buildings, and to support the warm hand-off and reentry of offenders transitioning from prison to communities. Subsequent budget acts have continued to fund the program. This bill, instead, commencing July 1, 2026, and upon appropriation of funds, would transfer the administration of the grant program to the Department of Housing and Community Development. The bill would require the department, on or before December 1, 2026, to modify the grant program to provide 5-year renewable grants to geographically diverse regional administrators responsible for funding permanent supportive housing and reentry services for eligible people, as specified. The bill would require the department to issue proposed guidelines or a draft notice, as specified, establishing the grant program and require the department to competitively score applicants applying for grant funds as regional administrators. The bill would require the department to work collaboratively with the State Department of Health Care Services, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and homeless continuums of care, and seek to work collaboratively with county probation departments, to establish a process for referrals of people eligible to participate in the program, as specified. The bill would also require the department to establish specified benchmarks to promote and track ideal outcomes from the program. This bill would require the department to distribute program funds by executing contracts with awarded regional administrators and would impose certain requirements on those regional administrators. The bill would prescribe eligibility requirements for a person scheduled for release from, or who has been be formerly incarcerated in, state prison, to participate in the program. The bill would require program funds to be used for specified purposes, including specified administrative fees, permanent housing, rental and operating subsidies, incentives to landlords, and voluntary multidisciplinary services, as specified. The bill would require the department, upon implementation of the program, to design an evaluation and hire an independent evaluator to assess outcomes from the program, and would require the evaluation to be submitted to specified committees of the Legislature. This bill would require the board to continue to oversee and administer existing program grants that have not yet expired, using resources allocated to the board through funds allocated by the Budget Act of 2025. This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish a process to engage an individual scheduled for discharge, within at least 210 days of the scheduled release date, for the purpose of assessing the individual's risk of homelessness upon discharge, as specified.
Existing law allows a person who was arrested or convicted of a nonviolent offense while they were a victim of human trafficking to petition the court, under penalty of perjury, for vacatur relief. Existing law requires a court that issues an order for relief pursuant to these provisions to also order specified law enforcement agencies to seal and destroy their records of the offense. This bill would authorize a person arrested for or convicted of an eligible offense, as defined, before the person was 26 years of age to petition the court to have their records of that conviction or arrest sealed and destroyed if 4 years have elapsed since the date on which the person was arrested or completed any terms of incarceration, probation, mandatory supervision, postrelease community supervision, or parole associated with the record, whichever was later, during which the person has not been convicted of a new offense. The bill would require a court granting this relief to also order specified law enforcement agencies to seal and destroy their records. By increasing duties on local law enforcement, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would exclude specified offenses from being considered an eligible offense, including, among others, a serious or violent felony, a sex offense, or an offense that may be plead and proved as a prior offense for purposes of imposing an increased sentence or enhancement upon conviction. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law allows a person who was arrested or convicted of a nonviolent offense while they were a victim of human trafficking, intimate partner violence, or sexual violence, to petition the court, under penalty of perjury, for vacatur relief. Existing law requires, to receive that relief, that the crime for which the person was arrested or convicted was a nonviolent offense and that the person establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that the arrest or conviction was the direct result of being a victim of human trafficking, intimate partner violence, or sexual violence. Existing law authorizes the court to vacate the conviction if it concludes that the petitioner was a victim of one of those crimes at the time of the alleged commission of the offense, the arrest was a direct result of being a victim of that offense, and the vacatur is in the best interest of justice. This bill would allow that relief for a person arrested or convicted of any offense, except murder, as specified. Because this bill would authorize more petitions to be filed under penalty of perjury, by expanding the scope of the crime of perjury, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. If a court issues an order for a person who was arrested or convicted of an offense while they were a victim of intimate partner violence or sexual violence, existing law requires the court to order the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction over the offense, the Department of Justice, and any law enforcement agency that arrested the petitioner or participated in the arrest of the petitioner to seal their records of the arrest and the court order to seal and destroy the records within 3 years from the date of the arrest, or within one year after the court order is granted, whichever occurs later, and thereafter to destroy their records of the arrest and the court order to seal and destroy those records. This bill would require the court to also order any law enforcement agency that has taken action or maintains records related to or because of the offense, including, but not limited to, departments of probation, rehabilitation, corrections, and parole, to seal and destroy their records. The bill would require those agencies to seal their records of arrest and the court order to seal and destroy the records within one year from the date of arrest, or within 90 days after the court order is granted, whichever occurs later. The bill would require the agencies to destroy these records within one year of the date of the court order. By increasing duties on local law enforcement, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would also require the Department of Justice to notify the petitioner and the petitioner's counsel that the department has complied with the order to seal the arrest records by the applicable deadline. Existing law creates an affirmative defense against a charge of a crime that the person was coerced to commit the offense as a direct result of being a victim of human trafficking, intimate partner violence, or sexual violence at the time of the offense and when the person had reasonable fear of harm. Existing law prohibits this defense from being used with respect to a violent felony, as defined. This bill would allow that defense to be used with respect to a violent felony, except for murder, as specified. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law, the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) , an initiative measure, authorizes a person who obtains a state license under AUMA to engage in commercial adult-use cannabis activity pursuant to that license and applicable local ordinances. The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA) , among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities. Existing law establishes the California Cannabis Tax Fund as a continuously appropriated fund consisting of specified taxes, interest, penalties, and other amounts related to commercial cannabis activity. Each fiscal year, AUMA requires the Controller to make specified disbursements from the fund, including, through the 2022–23 fiscal year, reasonable costs incurred by the Department of Cannabis Control for implementing, administering, and enforcing MAUCRSA. This bill would require the Controller to make a disbursement from the fund for reasonable costs incurred by the Department of Cannabis Control for maintaining and operating the track and trace program and for conducting civil or criminal enforcement against unauthorized commercial cannabis activity, as specified. By requiring moneys in the California Cannabis Tax Fund, a continuously appropriated fund, to be used for a new purpose, the bill would make an appropriation. AUMA also requires the Controller to make a disbursement from the fund to the Board of State and Community Corrections for making grants to local governments to assist with law enforcement, fire protection, or other local programs addressing public health and safety associated with the implementation of AUMA. AUMA prohibits the board from making grants to local governments that ban both indoor and outdoor commercial cannabis cultivation, or ban retail sale of cannabis or cannabis products. This bill would repeal that prohibition, thereby authorizing the Board of State and Community Corrections to make grants to local governments that ban both indoor and outdoor commercial cannabis cultivation or ban retail sale of cannabis or cannabis products. In order to be eligible for a grant, the bill would require a local government either to allow the retail sale of cannabis in storefronts or, for jurisdictions with a population of 10,000 residents or less, to allow cannabis delivery, as specified. The bill would require the board to prioritize grant awards for local governments whose grant application includes illicit cannabis enforcement, and would authorize the board to award grants both competitively and based on a formula to provide consistent and ongoing funding for local governments, as provided. AUMA authorizes the Legislature to amend its provisions with a 23 vote of both houses to further its purposes and intent, except as specified. This bill would declare that its provisions further the purposes and intent of AUMA. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.