California shorted prisoners on money for their release. It’s ending the practice

California prisons are no longer withholding money they are supposed to give people at the time of their release, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation memo obtained by CalMatters.

The policy change is meant to ensure that thousands of people leaving California prisons will receive their full $200 “gate money” allowance that they are entitled to under a 51-year-old state law. The stipend is intended to help people cover basic necessities in their initial days of freedom.

The new directive follows the filing of a class-action lawsuit and a recent legislative order mandating the department to stop withholding cash from formerly incarcerated people.

The corrections department didn’t hide the fact that it deducted money from release allowances. According to its regulations, the agency did so if someone did not have dress-out clothes or arrangements for transportation. 

“We’re frustrated and disappointed that it took a lawsuit being filed to change an unlawful Department of Corrections’ policy, which should have been in compliance with the law from the very beginning,” said Chesa Boudin, one of the lead attorneys of the class-action lawsuit.

The class-action lawsuit filed in September by UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center and the law firm Edelson PC alleged that the agency illegally docked fees from over a million people since 1994. According to the lawsuit, the department “routinely withholds some or all of the funds based on eligibility criteria of its own making, criteria that violate the plain language of the law.”

At the urging of criminal justice advocacy groups, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a government funding bill on Sept. 30 that gave the department an additional $1.8 million for clothing and transportation costs for the next year.

According to corrections spokesperson Mary Xjimenez, the department changed its policy to comply with the new budget appropriation.

“Effective immediately,” stated a memo to top prison officials on the day Newsom signed the bill, “cost for clothing and transportation vouchers provided at the time of release will no longer be deducted from the release allowance.”

Xjimenez wrote in an email to CalMatters that it is “a lasting policy that will be funded by future budget appropriations.” The department is in the process of revising its regulations to reflect the change.

“CDCR understands how critical the first few days of a person’s release are for a successful reentry,” she wrote.

According to a 2008 report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, the first 72 hours after someone is released from prison are paramount to the success of their long-term reentry. The lawsuit describes the release funds as a “critical lifeline” and “small but vital aid.”

Boudin said the change in policy is an achievement for the class-action lawsuit, which aims to ensure that the corrections department ends its withholding of allowances and follows state law. But it falls short of addressing the other component of the lawsuit, which seeks retroactive payments for those who had gate money funds deducted — or were denied entirely.

That includes people like John Vaesau, one of the lawsuit’s lead plaintiffs, who didn’t receive any of his gate money when he was released from Folsom State Prison in June 2023.

“Right now, (the corrections department is) just trying to throw bits and pieces at it, thinking they can fix a crumbling house,” Vaesau said. “We don’t want them to think they got away with anything. We want them to at least pay for what they got coming, not only for us but for everybody who came before us and after us.”

In an attempt to limit the size of the class-action lawsuit, attorneys representing the corrections department pushed back in Alameda County Superior Court filings, stating that “(the agency) has an affirmative defense under the statute of limitations.” Claims that the agency “failed to pay the appropriate amount of gate money” prior to July 14, 2021, they argued, “is untimely.”

But those who filed the lawsuit remain optimistic that the court will side with them.

“We are absolutely confident that our core legal claims about the illegality of the Department of Corrections’ long-standing policy will prevail,” Boudin said.