The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has released crime/incident data from August 2024. The Toughest Beat has been trending attacks on staff members inside of CDCR prison walls and found the trend of increasing attacks on staff members has continued to rise. Even with inmate population decreasing, the attacks on CDCR staff members have risen to unprecedented numbers.
Using a combined number of Batteries on Staff, Attempted Homicides on Peace Officers, and Assaults on Staff divided by the number of inmates housed that month, The chart below shows a percentage of staff attacks by inmates inside of prisons.
One year ago, in September 2023, CDCR had housed 95,147 inmates and had a combined 251 attacks on staff members. One year later, in August 2024, CDCR housed 91,991 inmates and had a combined 361 attacks on staff. When CDCR releases the September 2024 numbers, it is expected the trend of increased violence by inmates will meet the trend of rising violence.
The Toughest Beat believes the non-scientific transition to the “California Model” of prison management is at least partially to blame for the increased violence in CDCR. The California Model (often called Prisneyland) has not been officially implemented in every prison, but most CDCR prisons are attempting to implement ideas behind this model. Prisons who are not officially on the California Model management are implementing more inmate freedoms and allowing for more entertainment events on the facilities. It should be noted, despite the California Model’s terminology, in practice it amounts to giving inmates more freedoms and more entertainment.
California Governor Newsom rolled out the California Model in an attempt to mirror some aspects of the Norway Model. The Norway Model does have some good aspects to it, however the California Model is not like the Norway Model in most important ways. Unlike the Norway Model, the California Model is not based on science. Despite several years of criminological research on prison management, California went their own way with implementing Prisneyland.
The rhetoric and salesmanship on the California Model uses fancy doublespeak to sell the program to CDCR staff. In reality, all that has been implemented with the California Model is to give inmates more freedoms, more entertainment, and to change the title of inmates to “incarcerated people.”
The California Model had four pillars: One pillar is “dynamic security” this has been implemented to give inmates more freedoms. Another of the four pillars is “normalization” this has been implemented to mean concerts, games, and barbeques on the facilities and in visiting. The pillar of “peer mentorship” means giving inmates a class to go to and earn good time credits to get out of prison early. The remaining pillar of “becoming a trauma-informed organization” has been to ignore the science of forensic psychology and give inmates new titles and remove “inmate” from many written materials.
Until California starts using a scientific approach to prison management, it can be expected violence will continue to increase. Until CDCR drops the California Model lie and adopts a working prison management model, more staff will be injured.
Despite Newsom’s attempts to put CDCR staff in danger, please stay safe and watch your partners back.
thetoughestbeat
What is the source of these stats? The numbers seem drastically low compared to what I see (boots on ground).
The raw data came from CDCR compstat information. The numbers will be a little low as CDCR statistics only allow for one category for every crime/incident. For example, if an inmate murders another inmate and batters a CO in the process, this will count as “homicide of an incarcerated person” and not be counted as a battery on a staff member. Unfortunately, the information CDCR provides is the best reliable source of information. I truly wish CDCR was more transparent with information, but we get what we get.
How can you say that in such a report. It’s obvious violence is getting worse. CDCR can lie about the attacks on staff. The use of force are on a sharp rise. Those numbers are real. There is a reason for 400 more use of force since last September. The violence will continue to rise its easy math. History repeating its self. People are forgetting the past. And if you dont use the past to make decisions in the future you are destine to repeat. Inmates used to be able to wear their own clothes have picnics with their families. They had weights, lifer had over night family visiting, we released the gang members from the SHU. We have done this all before.