A year after Californians voted for a conservative shift in criminal justice policy, they began to see the results.
Proposition 36, approved by voters last year, gave prosecutors the ability to charge people convicted of various third-time drug offenses with a so-called treatment-mandated felony – a choice between behavioral health treatment or up to three years in jail or prison.
In the law’s first six months, 9,000 people were charged with a treatment-mandated felony and nearly 15% — or 1,290 people — elected treatment. Of the 771 people placed into treatment, 25 had completed it by the end of June.
Conditions for incarcerated people were once again the subject of litigation and controversy. The state of California sued the Los Angeles County jail system, citing “inhumane conditions” and a “shocking rate of deaths.”
With temperatures inside some prisons reaching 95 degrees each summer, advocates for the incarcerated demanded air conditioning. The state responded by launching a $38 million pilot test of cooling systems and new insulation over the next four years at three of the department’s 31 prisons. Results of the test are not expected until mid-2029.
The prison population itself is dropping, in part because of changes to sentencing laws over the last decade. About 90,000 people are incarcerated in California prisons, down from a peak of about 170,000.
That falling prison population has given Newsom reason to shutter another prison, the fifth of his term. The prison, a former art deco hotel in Riverside County, is slated to close in 2026. The state expects to save about $150 million by closing the prison.
Prison spending also caught renewed attention from lawmakers, one year after the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ran out of money. The department is on track to exceed its budget by roughly $850 million over three years despite recent cuts.
The union representing 25,000 prison guards — among the wealthiest public worker unions in the state – struck a deal for a new contract that gives California some financial relief in the short term but includes a mix of bonuses and raises that would kick in over time.
2026 outlook:
Fewer people in prison also gave new life to an effort to put prisoners in single-occupancy cells, a bill that didn’t make it to Gov. Gavin Newsom this year, but is expected to return in 2026.
A Los Angeles County ban on law enforcement agents wearing masks, which is set to take effect in January and explicitly mentions U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, could prove to be another flashpoint in the ongoing war of words and lawsuits between Newsom and the Trump administration.