California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

CDCR is the 3rd largest law enforcement agency in the United States behind the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which is an arm of Dept of Homeland Security (DHS), and the New York City Police Department, which employ approximately 66,000 federal officers and 42,000 police officers respectively. CDCR correctional officers are sworn law enforcement officers with peace officer powers.

As of 2013, CDCR employed approximately 24,000 peace officers (state correctional officers), 1,800 state parole agents, and 150 criminal investigators.

Kathleen Allison was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom as Secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) on October 1, 2020.[3]

In 1851, California activated its first state-run institution. This institution was a 268-ton wooden ship named The Waban, and was anchored in the San Francisco Bay.[4] The prison ship housed 30 inmates who subsequently constructed San Quentin State Prison, which opened in 1852 with approximately 68 inmates.[5]

Since 1852, the Department has activated thirty-one prisons across the state. CDCR's history dates back to 1912, when the agency was called California State Detentions Bureau. In 1951 it was renamed California Department of Corrections. In 2004 it was renamed California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In 2018-201 it cost an average of $81,203 to house an inmate for one year.[6]

Correctional Officers are peace officers per California penal code sections 830.5, as their primary duties are to provide public safety and correctional services in and outside of state prison grounds, state-operated medical facilities, and camps while engaged in the performance of their duties.

The primary duties of these officers include, but are not limited to, providing public safety and law enforcement services in and around California's adult and youth institutions, fire camps, and state-operated medical facilities and hospitals, and community correctional facilities. These officers also monitor and supervise parolees who are released back into the general public. Other primary duties include investigation and apprehension of institutional escapees and parolees at large (PAL), prison gangs, statewide narcotics enforcement and investigations (involving institutions), etc.

According to the Officer Down Memorial Page Web site, since the inception of what is currently CDCR, 33 employees have been killed in the line of duty.[19] Of these, 20 have been killed by inmates. Seventeen were custody employees, and three were non-custody employees who supervised inmates working in industrial areas. Fifteen deaths were from stab wounds, two were from gunshot wounds, two were from bludgeoning, and one was from being thrown from a tier.[20]

In addition to correctional officers, CDCR employs a small group of special agents[21] (criminal investigators) who are assigned to offices throughout the state. These investigators are part of an elite unit known as the Special Service Unit or simply SSU. They have full-time peace officer powers throughout the state under Penal Code Section 830.2. SSU agents conduct criminal investigations involving parolees and inmates, monitor prison gangs, gather intelligence and conduct narcotics enforcement. Special agents work closely with other law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, California Department of Justice and local police and sheriff departments. SSU special agents hold the state equivalency of a CDCR captain. As confidential employees, they are able to keep a low profile and small footprint while carrying out very high-profile cases.

SSU special agents on a parole sweep circa 1998

The Special Service Unit was formed in 1964, at the request of then-California Governor Edmund Brown. The formation of the unit is said to have evolved after the March 9, 1963 kidnapping of two Los Angeles police officers. This incident was documented in Joseph Wambaugh's bestseller, The Onion Field."The kidnapping and subsequent murder of one of the officers was committed by two state parolees, Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith (a.k.a., Jimmy Youngblood). LAPD officers Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger conducted a routine traffic stop on Powell and Smith in the Hollywood area. As the two officers approached the car, they were kidnapped at gunpoint by the two parolees and forced into Powell's car. They were driven north from Los Angeles to an onion field near Bakersfield, where Officer Campbell was fatally shot. Officer Hettinger was able to escape.[22]

In the police investigation that ensued after the incident, the ability of LAPD detectives to get timely and necessary information from the Department of Corrections was severely hampered, ostensibly by the size and bureaucracy of the department. Detectives needed a way to obtain information quickly and have the assistance of the CDCR resources. Because of this tragic incident and the legislative conferences afterward, a decision was made to form the Special Service Unit.

Charles Casey, who was an assistant director with CDCR at the time, learned of a unit within the New York Department of Corrections that seemed to bridge the gap between New York state parole services and local law enforcement. Casey met with Russell H. Oswald, chairman of the New York State Parole Board, who was the founder of the Bureau of Special Services within the New York parole division. Based upon his study and evaluation of the Bureau of Special Services, Casey came back to California and designed a similar unit, calling it the Special Service Unit. After the legislature approved its formation, the unit officially began services in 1964.[23]

The unit serves as the primary investigative unit for CDCR on cases that stem from the prison or state parolees and affect the street. According to its official description, SSU "conducts the major criminal investigations and prosecutions, criminal apprehension efforts of prison escapees and parolees wanted for serious and violent felonies, is the primary departmental gang management unit, conducts complex gang-related investigations of inmates and parolees suspected of criminal gang activity, and is the administrative investigative and law enforcement liaison unit." In layman's terms, this means the unit does anything asked of it to keep communities safe. Special agents come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have worked their way up through the Department of Corrections. An internal hire must hold the rank of lieutenant or above in order to apply to SSU. Law enforcement officers also apply from outside agencies, such as local police departments and other state police services. Those individuals ordinarily come with an investigative and/or tactical background, usually having served on their agencies detective unit and special weapons team (SWAT).[24]

CDCR Special Service Unit agents making an arrest

Throughout its fifty-year history, the Special Service Unit has been quietly involved in numerous high-profile cases. One such example is the Patricia Hearst kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in 1974. The SLA was a radical left-wing organization formed in Soledad Prison by Donald DeFreeze. In 1973 Defreeze escaped from prison and was leading the SLA on the streets when they kidnapped Hearst. The day after Hearst's kidnapping, special agents from the unit's San Francisco office provided police with photographs of suspects who matched the overall description of one of the abductors. Thanks to photographs supplied by SSU, DeFreeze was positively identified as one of Hearst's abductors. That identification led to a lengthy investigation of SLA and its origin behind prison walls.

Another example is the high-profile murders that shook Los Angeles in the late sixties. The murders were committed by members of Charles Manson's cult and came to be known as Helter Skelter. During the course of the investigation into the cult, SSU special agents were requested by Los Angeles Police to interview Bruce Davis, a Manson follower who had been convicted of the 1969 Gary Hinman murder in Los Angeles. Davis was a Manson devotee whom police were trying to turn as an informant into many of the open murders linked to the Manson Family.

On January 26, 2001, San Francisco resident Diane Whipple was attacked and killed by two large Presa Canario dogs in the hallway of her apartment building. The dogs, named Bane and Hera, were owned by Whipple's neighbors, Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel. The dogs' actual owner, Paul Schneider, was a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang who was serving a life sentence in Pelican Bay State Prison. The Special Service Unit had been investigating the Aryan Brotherhood and its illegal dog breeding business for several months prior to the death of Whipple. SSU was able to assist local law enforcement during the investigation and prosecution of Knoller and Noel.

In August 2009, Phillip Garrido was arrested in Antioch, Calif., for the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard. He had kidnapped her eighteen years prior and kept her in captivity. The Hayward (Calif.) police department had interest in Garrido as it related to the 1988 kidnapping of nine-year-old Michaela Garecht. Special agents from SSU assisted the detectives from the Hayward Police Department in the ensuing investigation. In 2011, they assisted in conducting interviews with Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido, who had both been sentenced to state prison in California.[25]

In February 2018, SSU culminated a year long operation in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, code named "Silent Night." The investigation focused on the Nuestra Familia prison gang and its control over Northern California communities. The investigation centered on the city of Woodland, California and the street gang called "Varrio Bosque Norteno." An arrest sweep of 29 suspects took place on February 14, 2018.[26]

The current configuration of the Special Service Unit remains true to its origins—small and mobile. As of 2018, CDCR reports there are only thirty SSU special agents. They are based throughout California in clandestine, off-site locations. Every agent is equipped with tactical and surveillance equipment and is ready to respond anywhere within the state at a moment's notice.

In 2005, CDCR began to consolidate various divisions and units in an effort to realign its organizational structure. During that time the Office of Correctional Safety (OCS) was created, which serves as the "special operations division" for the department. Within the OCS are groups such as the Fugitive Apprehension Team (FAT) and the Emergency Operations Unit (EOU). SSU became a branch of OCS as well, which elevated the training and tactical acumen for all of the special agents. With the merger of the EOU unit with SSU, special agents were responsible for attaining a higher level of tactical firearms proficiency as well as tactical high-risk entry training.

Serving as the "detective unit" for the Department of Corrections, SSU special agents are responsible for keeping current on the latest investigative techniques and current case law. Special agents often work hand-in-hand with law enforcement investigators from all branches of government, city, county and federal. Many SSU agents are assigned to regional task forces throughout California and a handful are cross-designated as federal task force officers with such federal partners as the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The number of prison escapes from California prisons is not officially published anywhere. However, a 2018 article on the CDCR press release webpage states, "Since 1977, 99 percent of all offenders who have left an adult institution, camp or community-based program without permission have been apprehended."[33] The release goes on to say that the Special Service Unit is the specialized unit tasked with hunting down prison escapees. The article states, "[Its] the primary departmental link with allied law enforcement agencies and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services."[34] A large majority of the escapes occur from the minimum security facilities, such as fire camps. Inmates are also placed back in the community through the Alternative Custody Program (ACP)[35] and will elect to flee and not complete the program. These are also considered prison escapes.

One of the most high profile prison escapes occurred on June 5, 1987 at Folsom State Prison. Inmate Glen Godwin was able to escape the then maximum security prison. He reportedly escaped through a storm drain and into the American River. Godwin has been featured on several television documentaries as well as being on the FBI's Most Wanted List for twenty years. The case is still open and being worked by cold case investigators from SSU.[36]

SSU special agents arresting a prison escapee in the Tenderloin, San Francisco, Calif.

In August 2014, convicted murderer Scott Landers escaped from the back of a CDCR transport van while on the Interstate 5 freeway just north of Atwater, Calif. Landers had been convicted of the stabbing of a 61-year-old man in Riverside, Calif. and was serving twenty-five years to life. Upon his escape, members of the elite Special Service Unit were called in from across the state to lead the investigation. Within twenty-four hours, the escaped murderer was caught and brought back to CDCR custody.[37]

Officers of the department are represented by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (the CCPOA). It was founded in 1957 and its stated goals include the protection and safety of officers, and the advocation of laws, funding and policies to improve work operations and protect public safety. The union has had its controversies over the years, including criticism of its large contributions to former California Governor Gray Davis. Since the California recall election, 2003, the CCPOA has been a vocal critic of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In June 2008, the union came under investigation from both the California Office of the Inspector General and the CDCR for its role in the hiring of a 21-year-old parolee by Minorities In Law Enforcement, an affiliate of CCPOA.[38] Upon conclusion of investigations by both agencies, no wrongdoing was found.

• List of law enforcement agencies in California

National:

• List of United States state correction agencies

• Official website
• Crime Prevention and Corrections in the California Code of Regulations
• California Youth and Adult Corrections Authority (Archive)
• California Correctional Peace Officers Association
• California Reentry Program