Ca -prisoners

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Why it is important: The scholarship is intended to help people meet the basic needs in their first freedom times. Former prisoners in California are entitled to this money under a 51-year state law. According to the lawsuit, the department “routinely and all the means or all agents based on the authorization criteria for their own production, criteria that violate the simple language of the law”.

The background story: The new guideline follows the submission of a class action and a recently commissioned order in which the department is required to stop holding cash from previously detained people. The lawsuits of over one million people have illegally thought the lawsuit submitted by the UC Berkeley's Criminal Law & Justice Center and the law firm Edelson PC that the agency had been illegally considered since 1994.

The context: At the urging of interest groups of criminal justice, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a financing law on state financing on September 30, which enabled the department a further 1.8 million US dollars for clothing and transport costs for the next year.

Californian prisons no longer hold back money to give people at the time of their release, according to a ministry for corrections and rehabilitation memo in California preserved by Calmeratt.

The change in the guidelines is intended to ensure that thousands of people who leave California prisons receive their full $ 200-gate money allowance, which they are entitled to under a 51-year state law. The scholarship is intended to help people meet the basic needs in their first freedom times.

The new guideline follows the submission of a class action and a recently commissioned order in which the department is required to stop holding cash from previously detained people.

The correction department did not hide the fact that it deducted money from the release assignments. According to its regulations, the agency did this if someone had no dressing clothing or arrangements for transport.

“We are frustrated and disappointed that a lawsuit has been submitted to change an illegal guideline of the corrections that should be complied with from the start with the law,” said Chesa Boudin, one of the leading lawyers of the class action.

The class action, which was submitted in September by UC Berkeley's Criminal Law & Justice Center and the law firm Edelson PC, claimed that the agency has illegally died out since 1994. According to the lawsuit, the department “the department, which violates the eligibility of the law on the basis of the eligibility of the law, is routinely violated, the criteria or the simple language of the law.”

At the urging of interest groups of criminal justice, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a financing law on state financing on September 30, which enabled the department a further 1.8 million US dollars for clothing and transport costs for the next year.

According to the correction spokesman Mary Xjimenez, the department changed its guidelines to adhere to the new budget appropriation.

“Immediately effective,” said a memo to the top prison officers on the day on which newsoma signed the law.

Xjimenez wrote in an e -mail of Calmatters that it is “a permanent guideline that is financed by future budget”. The department is to revise its regulations to reflect the change.

“CDCR understands how critically the first days of publishing a person are for a successful re -entry,” she wrote.

According to a report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center from 2008, the first 72 hours, after someone was released from prison, are of great importance for the success of their long -term re -occurrence. The lawsuit describes the release funds as “critical lifeline” and “small but important help”.

Boudin said that the change in politics was an achievement for the class action, which is intended to ensure that the correction department ends the retention of allowing allowances and state law follows. However, it is not to deal with the other component of the lawsuit that requested retrospective payments for those who had withdrawn Gate Money Funds or were fully refused.

This includes people like John Vaesau, one of the leading plaintiffs of the lawsuit that were released from the Folsom State prison from the Folsom State prison in June 2023.

“At the moment (the correction department) is just trying to throw parts and think that you can repair a crumbled house,” said Vaesau. “We don't want you to think that you got away with anything. We want you to pay at least for what you come, not just for us, but also for everyone who came before us and after us. “

In an attempt to limit the size of the class action, lawyers who represented the correction department that pushed back in the district ideas of Alameda County and explained that “(the agency) has a positive defense after the limitation period.” Claims that the agency “did not pay the corresponding amount to Gate money before July 14, 2021,” she argued that “was prematurely”.

But those who have filed the lawsuit remain optimistic that the court will stand side by side with them.

“We are absolutely confident that our legal core claims about the illegality of the long -standing guideline of the Department of Corrections will prevail,” said Boudin.