By Patrick Bijan Balahan
Introduction: The Hidden Power Behind California Prisons
California pours about $14 billion of General-Fund money each year into the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Yet violence, medical neglect, and cover-ups remain routine. A major reason is the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) — a politically connected union whose influence over Sacramento stifles oversight, shields abusive officers, and keeps prison beds full. This article examines how CCPOA power translates into corruption on the tier — and what must change if true rehabilitation is ever to replace retaliation.
What Is the CDCR — and Why Does It Matter?
The CDCR operates 33 adult prisons, manages over 90,000 incarcerated individuals, and oversees thousands more on parole. It is one of the largest prison systems in the world.California’s stated mission is “public safety through rehabilitation,” but decades of court cases – Plata, Coleman, and Brown v. Plata – say otherwise, finding systemic Eighth-Amendment violations so severe that a federal receiver still controls prison health care.
Despite its size and funding, California’s prison system has:
- A long history of violence and racial segregation
- Rampant staff misconduct and coverups
- Poor mental health and medical care (leading to multiple federal interventions)
- One of the most powerful law enforcement unions in America
The CCPOA: A Union Unlike Any Other
Founded during the “tough-on-crime” boom of the 1980s, CCPOA now counts almost every state correctional officer as a dues-paying member. It has bankrolled governors, placed political ads in competitive districts, and negotiated contracts that make it easier to award overtime than discipline misconduct. CalMatters traced $3.8 million in CCPOA spending across 32 state races—enough to unseat legislators who threaten its priorities.
Patrick Bijan Balahan’s Take:
“The CCPOA has operated like a shadow government within California corrections—funding political campaigns, fighting transparency, and protecting its own no matter the cost.”
5 Ways the CCPOA Undermines Accountability
1. Blocking Independent Oversight
For over a decade, bills to create an external prison ombudsman with subpoena power have died in committee moments after CCPOA lobbyists testified. The union funnels millions in campaign cash and “behested” donations to key legislators, allowing leaders to quietly table reform without casting a public “no.” When partial oversight measures do pass, contract language the union negotiates limits investigators’ access to incident reports and body-cam footage, turning watchdogs into lapdogs. The result is a legal mirage: transparency statutes exist on paper, but inspectors spend months chasing redacted files instead of uncovering the truth.
2. Shielding Bad Officers
Disciplinary cases almost never reach termination because the CCPOA contract forces them into closed-door arbitration, where outcomes stay secret and the arbitrators are drawn from a union-approved panel. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) rated 65 percent of 2024 staff-misconduct inquiries “poor,” citing ignored investigative leads and blown deadlines. Even officers filmed beating or pepper-spraying restrained prisoners frequently return to the same housing unit after short suspensions, teaching staff that brutality carries little professional risk and warning incarcerated witnesses what snitching costs.
3. Funding “Tough-on-Crime” Politics
The union bankrolls ballot campaigns and attack ads that frame sentencing reform as a danger to public safety—even when peer-reviewed research shows the opposite. In 2020 it spent more than $1.2 million to defeat state senator John Moorlach after he backed prison-closure studies, a race observers say turned on CCPOA money. By defining safety strictly as “more beds, more staff,” the union protects a head-count revenue model: every incarcerated body equals dues. That logic helps explain why, despite years of rhetoric, California still funds one of the costliest prison systems in the world.
4. Opposing Decarceration and Prison Closures
From campaign flyers warning of “violent felons on our streets” to late-night TV spots, CCPOA scare tactics spike whenever lawmakers propose closing facilities or expanding early-parole credits. Analysts say multiple closures have stalled because legislators fear union-backed primary challengers. Even when a prison finally shutters, the union negotiates lucrative transfer bonuses that wipe out projected savings, preserving an expensive, aging infrastructure under the veneer of “public safety.”
5. Suppressing Whistle-Blowers
Correctional officers who report misconduct are branded traitors, given dangerous duty posts, or frozen out of promotions. The OIG has documented supervisors leaking the names of confidential witnesses, exposing them to retaliation. Because arbitration files are sealed, Californians rarely learn that whistle-blowers often suffer harsher consequences than the abusers they expose. Civil-rights suits settle with non-disclosure clauses, insulating the union’s image and perpetuating a code of silence.
Real-World Consequences for Incarcerated People
CDCR’s brutality is neither rare nor random; it is baked into daily operations as informal “behavior management.” In 2023 the department logged 183 051 staff-misconduct complaints—astonishing for a population under 100 000. In units with poor camera coverage, officers stage “extraction drills”: flooding cells with pepper spray, dragging occupants into hallways, then filing boilerplate reports marking the force “necessary.” Prisoners who grieve such assaults receive retaliatory write-ups that extend time in segregation or strip family visitation.
Medical neglect deepens the harm. Federal monitors still cite chronic understaffing, lost lab results, and specialist delays that turn treatable illnesses fatal. Diabetics wait weeks for insulin adjustments; cancer diagnoses arrive so late that palliative care is the only option. Mental-health care fares no better: Coleman filings describe suicidal prisoners left in bare cells until attempts occur—after which staff restrain, rather than treat, the underlying crisis.
Sexual violence is endemic in women’s facilities. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a 2024 civil-rights investigation into staff rape and groping at the Central California Women’s Facility and the California Institution for Women after hundreds of allegations. Lawsuits allege forced strip-searches and threats of fabricated disciplinary tickets for women who speak up—made all the more chilling because the accused officers often control grievance paperwork and cell assignments.
System-wide lockdowns, branded as “safety responses,” function as collective punishment: cancelling visits, cutting phone lines, and confining people to eight-by-twelve-foot cells for days or weeks. Educational and rehabilitative programs halt, stoking idle tensions that predictably lead to more violence—a vicious loop the union calls “security,” but critics liken to administrative solitary confinement.
The public price tag is colossal. Taxpayers spend more than $106 000 per incarcerated person per year while also funding federal receiverships and multimillion-dollar abuse settlements. Each payout drains the same General Fund that supports schools, roads, and health programs, meaning Californians effectively bankroll a system that delivers neither rehabilitation nor safety.
Federal Courts Have Already Intervened — But It Is Not Enough
- Plata v. Schwarzenegger placed prison health care under a receiver after finding care so poor it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
- Coleman v. Brown reached similar conclusions on mental-health treatment.
- Brown v. Plata forced population reductions to ease unconstitutional overcrowding.
Yet union resistance and weak legislative follow-through mean reforms arrive slowly—often only after new lawsuits compel them.
What Needs to Change
- Independent Civilian Oversight with full subpoena power and direct access to use-of-force and medical records.
- Contract Reform —discipline and transparency clauses must be non-negotiable in any future CCPOA agreement.
- Strong Whistle-Blower Protections for staff who report abuse.
- Neutral Prosecutors for in-custody deaths, insulating investigations from local DAs who rely on union endorsements.
- Campaign-Finance Limits barring law-enforcement unions from donating to officials who set their pay and oversight rules.
Patrick Bijan Balahan’s Final Word
“California cannot claim moral leadership while outsourcing public safety to a system that protects its worst actors and silences its best. Breaking the union stranglehold on CDCR oversight isn’t anti-officer — it’s pro-accountability.”