Sacramento – Assemblymember Matt Haney’s (D-San Francisco) AB 1226 passed out of the Senate Public Safety Committee with bipartisan support. It will now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
This bill requires the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to respect the rights of minor children to remain in contact with their incarcerated parents. AB 1226 requires CDCR to place an incarcerated parent, legal guardian, or caregiver of a minor child in the correctional facility closest to that child’s home. The bill also allows already incarcerated parents to request a transfer to a prison close to their child’s home.
In a large state like California, there are thousands of incarcerated parents who are placed more than 500 miles from their children. Incarcerated mothers, in particular, struggle to maintain contact with their children. More than half of incarcerated mothers do not receive any visits from their children while they are in prison. Research shows that children with incarcerated mothers particularly struggle with behavioral health issues, which underscores the need for children to maintain contact with their incarcerated parents, especially mothers.
In 2019, CDCR released information that only 25% of incarcerated people in California state prisons are placed in institutions less than 100 miles from home. The long distances place a burden on families who do not have the financial means or the time to travel across the state for family visits.
Visitation falls off significantly the farther from home a person is incarcerated. 50% of people placed less than 50 miles away from home receive frequent family visitation, but only 15% of people placed 500 miles away receive visitors.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST
AB 1226, as amended, Haney. Corrections: Placement of incarcerated persons.
Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to conduct assessments and examinations of all inmates who are newly committed to a state prison that include investigation of all pertinent circumstances of the person’s life, including, but not limited to, data regarding the inmate’s history of substance abuse, medical and mental health, education, family background, criminal activity, and social functioning.
Existing law requires the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to assign a prisoner to the institution of the appropriate security level and gender population nearest the prisoner’s home, unless other classification factors make such a placement unreasonable.
This bill, for an incarcerated person with a parent and child relationship with a child under 18 years of age, as specified, or who is a guardian or relative caregiver of a child, as defined, would require the secretary to place the person in the correctional institution or facility that is located nearest to the primary place of residence of the person’s child, provided that the placement would be suitable and appropriate, would facilitate increased contact between the person and their child, and the incarcerated parent gives their consent to the placement. The bill would authorize the department to reevaluate an incarcerated person’s placement to determine whether existing orders should be modified, including whether the person’s child has moved to a place significantly nearer to an otherwise suitable and appropriate institution. The bill would allow an incarcerated person to request a review of their housing assignment when there is a change in the primary place of residence of the person’s child upon which the person’s housing assignment was based.