A Push to Curb Solitary Confinement in California Prisons Hits a Wall

On Monday, the communications director of Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) sent a press release with the news that AB 280, a bill that sought to limit the use of solitary confinement in state prisons, was not moving forward.

“Last year, we decided to leave the bill on the Assembly Floor to allow more time for all of the stakeholders involved to work toward a solution and during that time, new regulations were put forth to address some of the issues related to solitary confinement,” Holden, the bill’s author, said in the press release.

“Without a doubt, more change is needed, and I believe holding the bill on the Assembly Floor will allow the Legislature and advocates to review the results of these regulations and use new data to implement the most effective plan of action.”

In February, the California Legislative Black Caucus announced the 14 reparations bills it was prioritizing. CLBC members curated the list to test the limits of the Legislature’s commitment to racial justice while seeking to avoid a wholesale rejection that could derail the quest for reparations.

The bills were drawn from two years of work by the California Reparations Task Force, which KQED has reported on since its inception. The task force’s final report, published in June 2023, includes over 100 policy proposals, as well as a plan to provide direct cash payments to eligible residents. None of the introduced bills include cash payments.

Nine reparations bills remain alive, including one requiring the list of books banned inside California prisons to be publicly displayed. And in November, Californians will vote on a measure that seeks to remove language from the state’s constitution allowing involuntary servitude “as punishment to a crime.”

Here’s a brief recap of AB 280. For more information on reparations bills, please check out our tracker.

What AB 280 wanted to do: Limit the use of solitary confinement in state prisons.

How is limiting solitary confinement reparations? Black men make up 28% of the state’s prison population and 18.5% of the population in restricted housing. Meanwhile, Black women account for 25.4% of the prison population, and four out of five women in restricted housing are Black, according to a 2022 report by the Correctional Leaders Association and the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School.

Why isn’t AB 280 moving forward? Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a similar proposal in 2022, arguing that the bill’s exclusion of certain groups from segregated housing — such as inmates younger than 26 or older than 59 — was too broad. After vetoing the bill, Newsom ordered state prison officials to “develop regulations that would restrict the use of segregated confinement except in limited situations, such as where the individual has been found to have engaged in violence in the prison.”

While AB 280 was pending in the state Assembly, a spokesperson told KQED that Holden was waiting for advice from the governor’s office about how to amend the bill to avoid a second veto.

Monday’s press release from Holden’s office cited the support for AB 280 as a reason the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation released new solitary confinement guidelines in 2023 because the bill brought heightened awareness to issues with solitary confinement.

“The legislation is there. The language is written. I believe that it is important to move on this with urgency once the new information has been considered,” Holden said. “My hope is that AB 280 is the seed that will sprout into actionable change next session and that with a new fiscal year, this bill can make it to the finish line.”