By Mia Bird, Mia, Alissa Skog and Molly Pickard

 The California prison system is designed to house and provide rehabilitative services to people sentenced to prison for felony offenses. Although most people in prison are serving multi-year sentences, 39.6% of people released during the past ten years spent one year or less in prison custody. The proportion of people released after these short stays (of one year or less) increased from about one-third of all releases in 2014 to about one-half in 2023. In 2020 and 2023, the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code recommended that short prison stays of one year or less be served in county jails. This recommendation was designed to build on California’s Public Safety Realignment Act from 2011 which required people convicted of less serious felony offenses to serve their sentence in county jail instead of prison. The Legislature has not yet adopted this recommendation, but given the State’s focus on reducing prison system costs while maintaining public safety, it remains a policy option. In this fact sheet, we explore how the number and share of people released after short stays has changed over time in California. We also explore the demographic, offense, sentencing, and county characteristics of people who have short stays in prison. To do so, we draw on data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for the years 2014 through 2023. KEY FINDINGS Short stays have increased as a share of all releases since 2014. Over the past decade, 39.6% of all people released from prison had stays of one year or less. However, the proportion of those with short stays increased over this period from 36.3% of all releases in 2014 to 49.5% of all releases in 2023 (Figure 1). During this period, 15.4% of people released had very short stays of six months or less. The share of people released with very short stays also increased, from 13.4% in 2014 to 21.2% in 2023. This increase in short stays was concentrated in the period following the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first year of the pandemic, people may have spent more time in jail before they were convicted, sentenced, and transferred to prison. This was due to delays in court processing and suspensions of prison transfers. In addition, public health releases to reduce the spread of COVID-19 may have also led to shorter stays in prison.1 The share of people released from short stays continued to increase in 2022 and 2023. It remains to be seen whether this trend will continue in 2024.   

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2024. 7p.