SACRAMENTO, Calif. — People who earned rehabilitation and education credits under Proposition 57 had substantially lower three-year conviction rates than those who did not earn credits, according to a new California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation report that found statewide recidivism remained near a historic low.
Among 30,116 people released from California prisons between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, 39.5% were convicted of a new offense within three years, while 60.5%, or 18,230 people, completed the three-year follow-up period without a conviction. CDCR uses the three-year conviction rate as its primary measure of recidivism, while arrests and returns to prison are supplemental measures.
The findings represent CDCR’s second-lowest three-year conviction rate since reporting began, although the rate increased slightly from the record-low 39.1% recorded for people released in fiscal year 2019-20.
“The results are clear: when we invest in rehabilitation, public safety improves,” Amy Casias, director of Rehabilitation Programs at CDCR, said in an Aug. 4 press release. “People who participate in education, career training and many of the programs CDCR offers while incarcerated, come home better prepared for success and far less likely to return to prison.”
The report provides some of the strongest evidence of the relationship between participation in Proposition 57 credit-earning programs and lower rates of subsequent convictions.
Approximately half of those released, 49.9%, earned at least one of three types of enhanced credits: Milestone Completion Credits, Educational Merit Credits or Rehabilitative Achievement Credits. The three-year conviction rate for people who earned credits was 33.3%, compared with 45.6% for those who did not earn enhanced credits.
That represents a 12.3 percentage-point difference between the two groups. CDCR’s findings show an association between earning rehabilitation and educational credits and lower subsequent conviction rates but do not establish that participation alone caused the difference.
Some combinations of credits were associated with even lower conviction rates. People who earned both Educational Merit Credits and Rehabilitative Achievement Credits had a three-year conviction rate of just 3%, the lowest of any credit-earning combination examined by CDCR.
People earning all three types of credits had a 12.1% conviction rate. Those earning only Rehabilitative Achievement Credits had an 18.5% rate, while people earning only Educational Merit Credits had a 23.3% rate.
The findings come with an important qualification. CDCR said the COVID-19 pandemic substantially affected the historically low recidivism rates recorded for recent release cohorts.
The pandemic resulted in changes to local policing practices and crime rates, court closures, the movement of court proceedings to electronic and remote hearings and the temporary suspension of intake and transfers to CDCR. Those disruptions affected all three measures CDCR uses to evaluate post-release outcomes.
The three-year conviction rate increased from 39.1% for people released in fiscal year 2019-20 to 39.5% for those released in 2020-21. CDCR said the increase could indicate that the immediate effects of the pandemic are waning and that recidivism rates could begin moving toward pre-pandemic levels.
The different measures of recidivism also moved in different directions. The three-year arrest rate declined from 64.2% to 62.4%, the lowest arrest rate since CDCR began reporting the figures, while the return-to-prison rate increased from 17.4% to 20.4%.
Among the 30,116 people in the release cohort, 7,224, or 24%, were convicted of a felony during the three-year follow-up period, while 4,662, or 15.5%, were convicted of a misdemeanor.
Of the 11,886 people who were convicted, 60.8% had felony convictions and 39.2% had misdemeanor convictions. Felony crimes against persons represented the largest category, accounting for 20.1% of convictions among those who recidivated.
The report also found substantial differences in recidivism based on the offense for which a person was originally incarcerated.
People committed to CDCR for violent offenses had a three-year conviction rate of 24.2%, considerably lower than the 41.2% rate among those committed for serious offenses and the 48.7% rate among those committed for nonserious, nonviolent offenses.
People originally incarcerated for property crimes had the highest recidivism rate among the broad offense categories at 49.9%, followed by those incarcerated for offenses categorized as “other” at 45.1%, drug crimes at 43.4% and crimes against persons at 33%.
The report also found substantial differences depending on the form of post-release supervision. People released to Post-Release Community Supervision had a three-year conviction rate of 48.9%, compared with 31.7% for those released to parole.
CDCR cautioned against directly comparing those populations because their demographics, offenses, risk scores and other characteristics differ. People released to county-level Post-Release Community Supervision are more likely to have been incarcerated for nonserious, nonviolent property or drug offenses, which the report found were associated with higher recidivism rates.
Proposition 57, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, was approved by California voters in November 2016. The measure expanded opportunities for incarcerated people to earn credits for good behavior and participation in rehabilitative and educational programs, among other changes.
By completing programs, incarcerated people can earn credits that move them toward parole, release and other milestones.
One of CDCR’s most successful programs, according to its Aug. 4 press release, is the Specialized Treatment for Optimized Programming, or STOP, which has a parole success rate of 82.5%. STOP includes anger management, substance abuse treatment, family reunification and other services.
Other programs, such as Rehabilitative Achievement Credits, had a reentry success rate of 81.5% — a 27% increase. Educational and Merit Credits have aided people in gaining parole at a rate of 76.7%.
CDCR celebrated 58 incarcerated individuals who completed its Cognitive Behavioral Interventions, or CBI, program last month in a graduation ceremony in partnership with the Division of Rehabilitative Programs and the Amity Foundation, CDCR wrote in its press release.
CBI focuses on replacing “negative patterns of thought with prosocial thinking,” substance abuse prevention and other interventions.
Proposition 57 also includes judges deciding whether juveniles should be tried as juveniles or adults and created a parole process for nonviolent, determinately and indeterminately sentenced people “who have served the full term for their primary criminal offense and who demonstrate they no longer pose a current, unreasonable risk to the public,” CDCR wrote on its website.
CDCR has dedicated more than 11% of its fiscal year 2026-27 budget of $14.2 billion to its “data-backed” rehabilitative programs, according to its press release. It also opened the San Quentin Learning Center, an 80,000-square-foot educational center at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, in spring 2026 to further expand resources available to incarcerated people to improve their circumstances both in prison and after release.
“[Incarcerated people] can overcome all of their difficulties and those behavior norms that everyone expects of them, and they can change and they can become productive citizens,” said Myra Goodson, a correctional counselor at California Medical Facility.
To comment please go to one of these social media platforms:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavisVanguard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peoples-vanguard-of-davis-inc/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davisvanguard/
X: https://x.com/davisvanguard
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/vanguardnewsgroup.bsky.social
Subscribe to the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
