Policy Brief: Participation in California Prison Programs amid and after the Pandemic

Pandemic responses by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) led to changes in the prison population that exacerbated long-running challenges in providing education, employment, and behavioral health programs. When the pandemic hit, CDCR paused some programs and modified others; assessments to determine program need stopped, as did classroom instruction. Prisons then took a phased approach toward relaxing pandemic adaptations to establish a new normal.

Even as California prisons admitted fewer people from 2020 through 2023, about 5,000 fewer people per year were released from California prisons than in 2019 or before. People released had spent less time in prison due to adaptations to pandemic conditions that included delayed admissions and early releases.