In a blow to criminal justice reform advocates and a victory for corrections officials, California on Wednesday passed delayed legislation to limit the use of solitary confinement in jails, prisons and immigration detention centers to buy time to negotiate with the government. Gavin Newsom on security concerns.

Assembly Member Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) agreed to hold Assembly Bill 280 in the final days of this year’s legislative session, amid opposition from sheriffs and jail officials and skepticism from Newsom over the sweeping application and definition of segregated confinement, known as solitary confinement. The legislation may be considered in 2024.

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Last year, Newsom vetoed similar legislation to limit solitary confinement, also authored by Holden. He said that while he believed the issue was ripe for reform, the proposal was overbroad in a way that could jeopardize the safety of both staff and the incarcerated population. these facilities.

Newsom instead ordered the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to change the rules on solitary confinement, which are currently in the works, and anticipated this case. But the veto message did not include any indication of immigration detention centers or prisons, over which Newsom has no control and where advocates say there is rampant abuse of solitary confinement.

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Holden reintroduced the measure, arguing that legislation was the best way to bring about adequate changes to California’s isolation practices. As he continued discussions with Newsom’s office on the bill, AB 280 moved through the Capitol with strong support from Democrats.

But negotiations have stalled in recent weeks. Although the Senate narrowly approved AB 280 by a vote of 21-12, Holden, in consultation with the coalition that lobbied in support of AB 280, agreed to preserve it.

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in the General Assembly until next year. There it would have undergone a final vote before going to Newsom and, as advocates feared, being vetoed again.

“No matter what anyone has done, being in solitary confinement for extended periods of time is torture because it breaks the spirit,” Holden said at a Sept. 7 rally at the Capitol in support of AB 280. “The time is now.”

By keeping it in the Assembly, Holden said, AB 280 can still be used as a backup plan in the new year if CDCR’s rulemaking fails to address concerns.

“We may be celebrating (the guidelines),” Holden said in an interview with The Times. “But if we don’t do that, the bill can still be used as a tool to enact change.”

Supporters of AB 280 called on Newsom to negotiate with them “in good faith.”

Solitary confinement is torture and it must end. The governor has repeatedly attempted to subvert or subvert (AB 280) to continue torturing thousands of people in California prisons and other detention centers while worsening safety for all,” said Hakim Owen, an advocate who worked on the campaign to pass AB 280 and earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley’s Underground Scholars program for formerly incarcerated people.

“But our growing campaign, led by people who have lived in isolation or had relatives in their homes, continues to thwart his attempts to marginalize our movement,” Owen said. “The people have spoken. The vast majority of legislators have spoken. And now the governor must join his own party on the right side of history.”

Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said the governor’s office typically does not comment on pending legislation.

CDCR spokesperson Terri Hardy said the new regulations will be publicly reviewed and heard, and there will be opportunities for public input. The rules, Hardy said, “will limit the use of segregated confinement except in limited situations where individuals have engaged in violence or have serious safety concerns that cannot be addressed otherwise.”

The delay is another setback for prison reform advocates, who have spent the past year and a half lobbying for new restrictions on inmate isolation. Last month, a federal court ruled to end oversight of a 2015 settlement agreement that restricted solitary confinement in California prisons. The agreement was prompted by a lawsuit and hunger strikes in prisons in protest against the prolonged isolation.

The decision to hold AB 280 also reflects the challenges the progressive criminal justice reform movement has faced in recent years as concerns about crime and criticism of Democrats’ approach to solving it grow, causing the complicated efforts to overhaul the prison system.

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The proposal would limit solitary confinement for all inmates to 15 consecutive days, or no more than 45 days in a six-month period. It would also ban its use not only for pregnant and postpartum women, but also for people with certain mental and physical disabilities. , and anyone under 26 or over 59.

Corrections officials should increase time out of jail for recreation and rehabilitation programs, including counseling and treatment services.

The fifteen-day restriction does not mean that prisoners are automatically returned to the so-called general population. Instead, advocates said the bill requires corrections officers to find alternatives to isolation, which involves placing someone in a unit that provides more meaningful human contact and access to services.

Law enforcement organizations, including the California State Sheriffs Assn., argued that the proposal would impose dangerous, costly and impossible restrictions on what they see as an essential tool for reducing violence in their facilities.

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“We don’t want people to be separated beyond what is necessary and/or reasonable. I agree with that. But we don’t do that,” said Tulare Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, president of the association. “I just don’t see the need for this bill.”

Republicans consistently voted against AB 280, arguing that lawmakers should focus their time and attention on preventing crime.

“There are gangs in our prisons. And there is crime in the prisons that continues among the population there. And solitary confinement is a tool to manage prison and prevent it from escalating,” said Senator Brian Dahle (R). -Beaver).

Several moderate Democrats also opposed or abstained from voting on AB 280, and several questioned why the Legislature sent Newsom nearly the same proposal as the one he vetoed.

“Should we pass a bill, no matter how well-intentioned… that sets an arbitrary limit? It doesn’t take into account prison conditions,” said Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda).

But those who have experienced weeks, months, and in some cases decades, of prolonged isolation argue that solitary confinement is used to “torture” inmates, and that the practice contradicts California’s politically progressive values.

Eduardo Dumbrique, 42, traveled from Southern California to the Capitol for the rally last week. Dumbrique said he survived 13 years in solitary confinement in California prisons before proving his wrongful murder conviction and being released in 2021.

“It was the worst experience of my life. I’m so grateful to be free today, but I’m also really struggling with the effects the loneliness had on me,” Dumbrique said. “To say I’m not broken wouldn’t be right.”

James Daly, a San Quentin inmate who spent more than two decades in solitary confinement in federal prisons across the country, said the experience was like living in a tomb. He is now serving a state prison sentence for the same crimes that landed him in federal custody, including robbery, kidnapping and attempted murder of police.

Daly said he remembers entering prison when his daughter was just a few months old, and not being able to hug or hold her again until she was 26. He counted the concrete bubbles on the wall of his cell for entertainment, opening and closing the prison. doors and the dragging of shackles on the floor were the only sounds he heard for years.

Society as a whole has an interest in what happens in those places, Daly said in a telephone interview with The Times. That interest is that one day many of those people will come home. You want someone who spent twenty years locked up in a place like that?

“If you’re not angry when you go in,” he said, “you’re angry when you go out.”