California State Prison, Los Angeles County. [PHOTO: Center for Land Use Interpretation]
Governor Gavin Newsom’s “California Model” remake of the state prison system was pitched as a more humane carceral scheme structured upon the Scandinavian method of incarceration. Now two years old, the program’s effectiveness is being questioned and reviews of results are mixed from inside the prison system.
An indictment came twice this year, when violence and chaos on level IV yards — those housing the highest-security prisoners — erupted throughout the state.
From my perspective incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison, the incarcerated population and the staff report distressingly bleak outlooks for improvement. According to the CDCR incident report stats, assaults on staff at Mule Creek increased nearly twofold: from 22 in 2023 to 42 in 2024. A sampling of comments from correctional officers also found they felt that violence and stress were significantly on the increase.
Back in 2023, a major factor in instituting the California Model was an intent to reduce the stress and violence present in the carceral setting. California Department of Corrections Secretary Jeffery Macomber told us late last year, “It’s stressful working in a prison, or living in one, and the California Model is designed to ease some of that stress.” He also said that the department isn’t an “us versus them” institutional dynamic now — that was the old custody culture.
But within the prison environment there is a longstanding cultural divide between captors and captives that includes personal and structural racism, unequal power dynamics, and a deep adversarial attitude that is built in to the system. This entrenched cultural divide inhibits officer-incarcerated relations and stands in the way of movement toward better interpersonal communication necessary to effect change.
Despite this, at Mule Creek State Prison, members of the Inmate Advisory Council (a formal group which seeks to advise and communicate with the warden and staff about issues that concern the prison population) have organized roundtables where inmates, staff, and corrections officials come together to address issues to better implement the California Model. Education and rehabilitative programs that develop critical thinking skills and expand participants’ understanding of criminal thinking and enhance opportunities for growth are widely available.
But the efforts, both at the state level and interpersonally, aren’t meaningfully shifting the prison culture.
While the reasons for an increase in violence are likely multifold, a sampling of responses from officers largely places blame on the department’s efforts at implementation of the model. Some officers state that prisoners aren’t complying with direct orders and display outright contempt and disrespect toward staff. They say that prisoners appear to have a sense of entitlement, as if they know nothing will happen to them.
Incarcerated individuals we spoke with say that the increase in violence is due to correctional staff’s resistance to a more humane model. Many believe that officers are entrenched in an old-school prison mentality that uses force, intimidation, and violence as a first response. Some say that Trump’s return to the presidency enables an atmosphere that reestablishes a more adversarial dynamic between guards and inmates, each side resorting to old familiar paradigms of understanding. They indicate that there’s pushback against the new model, and a world where prisoners are treated as human beings isn’t a reality in the California prison system.
Halden Prison, Norway. [PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons]
Marty Williams, incarcerated for 36 years, is a member of the Rehabilitation Resource Committee at Mule Creek, an inmate-initiated committee designed to find ways to implement the ideals of the California Model into the system. “It’s doing about as well as can be expected,” Williams said of the model. People are attached to old ways, habits, and identities. For prisoners, or officers, our ideas of who we are, based on male role model belief systems, are tied to masculinity, and a hyper-masculinity mindset, within the prison setting. We have to appear tough, which is a reaction to vulnerabilities and a denial of feelings of helplessness and fear. We don’t know any other way and we put on masks, trying to look tough.”
One veteran officer who spoke anonymously sees officers resistant to change, and knows that it’s common for many COs to let the stress get to them. “When I work on A yard [Mule Creek’s level IV], I don’t even think about it, I just go about my routine,” he said. “They gotta cuff up if they want out for a shower, and I secure them in there before they’re uncuffed. If they want to argue, I go to the next cell. They eventually see that it’s not personal, there are rules and procedures. If they follow those rules we get along fine. I don’t care what anybody says or how they act, I’m here to do a job and that’s all it is. You can’t let it get to you.”
Another officer, on the job for less than a year, was asked if she saw the CDCR as a lifelong career. She said that she has options and isn’t “married to the job … I have other skills and haven’t decided yet.” As we spoke she was on her phone, checking texts about an extremely tense situation that had occurred in the prison system on her days off. She glanced up and said, “I guess you [meaning the inmate population] know all about this?”
In June, level III and IV facilities throughout the state were once again placed on lockdown status due to increased outbreaks of violence. Level II programming facilities remained open for visiting, rehab groups, yard, and other normal activities.
However, prison programs were unexpectedly discontinued over the weekend of June 21–22, with no explanation provided. By Monday, word had spread that the sudden lockdown was due to the tragic suicide deaths of two Mule Creek correctional officers. While no official notice was provided, correctional staff confirmed this report.
The senseless loss of life and the terrible circumstances surrounding these tragedies are felt by staff and incarcerated individuals alike. They highlight the need for greater understanding and appreciation for a shared humanity, much like that outlined in the California Model.
Through rehabilitative programs, self-help, deep introspection and a commitment to change, many prisoners develop an understanding of how they came to prison and begin to unravel the circumstances which led to criminality. In doing so, we also develop an understanding of shared humanity and begin to engage our core humanness — which opens doors to be able to feel and communicate honestly, to share feelings and emotions that all humans have in common.
The experiences, vulnerabilities, fears, loss, and grief of one becomes familiar and common to the many. Through empathy, communication, and understanding, perhaps the new California Model may become what it was originally envisioned to be.
