SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California bill aimed at improving the health of correctional officers and reducing recidivism passed a key legislative hurdle Tuesday, according to a news release.
Backed by state Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), the legislation seeks to make prisons less stressful for staff while focusing more on helping incarcerated individuals successfully reenter their communities.
The bill, SB 551, cleared the Assembly Public Safety Committee and would embed the principles of “normality and dynamic security” into California’s prison system—a policy shift intended to reshape how correctional staff interact with incarcerated people. Supporters say the framework promotes safer, more humane prison environments and addresses two longstanding issues: the health crisis among prison workers and the state’s high reoffense rates.
“This bill is designed to help decrease the early death rate of our state’s prison guards due to stress and prepare people who are incarcerated for a successful reentry into the community,” Cortese said in the release. “Re-offenses have been as high as 70 percent in California. This bill is designed to dramatically reduce recidivism.”
National data shows the average life expectancy of a correctional officer is just 59 years—about 16 years shorter than that of the general population. Cortese and other supporters frame the legislation as a public health initiative as much as a workplace reform.
SB 551 codifies the principles of dynamic security, a model used in some of the world’s most effective prison systems. Under this approach, officers maintain respectful, consistent communication with those in custody. Advocates argue that this strategy reduces violence, improves mental health outcomes and increases accountability—essential features of a more rehabilitative correctional model.
Last year, California enacted Assembly Bill 1104, which symbolically declared that the core purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation. SB 551 seeks to operationalize that declaration by requiring the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to integrate these principles into its training and institutional practices. If enacted, it would represent a major departure from punitive prison norms.
Not everyone supports the measure.
California Civil Liberties Advocacy (CCLA), a policy watchdog group, has criticized the bill’s assumption that prison life should resemble normal civilian life. In a statement opposing the bill’s language—also found in the amended Penal Code via AB 1104—the organization stated:
“We respectfully object to one particular policy statement found in both the legislative findings and amended Penal Code §1170(a)(1), which reads: ‘Active steps should be taken to make conditions in prison as close to normal life as possible, aside from loss of liberty.’”
CCLA argues that the statement is “vague, overbroad and utopian.” The group notes that “normal life” is a subjective and variable concept, depending on an individual’s socioeconomic and cultural background. Without clear definitions, they warn, the policy risks conflating rehabilitation with comfort or entitlement and could weaken public trust in the justice system.
“Life outside prison in the modern era could include watching TikTok or Instagram videos, engaging on other social media platforms, planning social outings with friends or participating in consumer-driven lifestyles that are inherently incompatible with correctional settings,” the organization wrote.
CCLA also raised concerns about whether such normalization principles would be applied uniformly, including to individuals convicted of serious crimes such as murder or sexual assault.
“This opens the door to potential policy extensions that could normalize prison life even for high-risk offenders,” the group stated.
While the organization acknowledged the importance of upholding human dignity behind bars, it emphasized that prison should remain distinct from civilian life to reflect the gravity of certain offenses and preserve proportionality in sentencing.
“We believe rehabilitation and accountability are compatible,” CCLA concluded. “But prison is still a form of consequence and should not become indistinguishable from freedom except in physical movement.”
SB 551 now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers will evaluate its costs and potential to reshape California’s prison culture.
