Addressing Chronic Vacancies in Prison Mental Health Care

Feb 23, 2026 - If the state —working with the court —allowed tele ‑mental health providers to work outside of California, it could likely attract a much larger pool of qualified professionals. Moreover, California often pays mental health professionals more than other states.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5134

Retail Theft in California: Looking Back at a Decade of Change

Jun 12, 2025 - How much have justice system costs increased? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Collecting answers to these questions will allow the Legislature to both monitor the implementation of the law changes and help it assess whether they are successful in reducing retail theft.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5055

Assessing Community College Programs at State Prisons

Jul 1, 2024 - Community colleges and CDCR generally report a much greater ability to accommodate demand for correspondence courses, with typically much less wait time. (Later in this section, we identify the main limitations to expanding in ‑person CCC course offerings.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4913

The 2026-27 Budget: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Feb 23, 2026 - If the state and court allowed tele ‑mental health providers to work outside of California, it could likely attract a much larger pool of qualified providers. Moreover, California often pays mental health professionals more than other states.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5137

The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 13, 2025 - We suggest the Legislature take heed of these risks and avoid putting too much stock in the recent revenue rebound until it is accompanied by clear improvements in California ’s broader economy. Governor ’s Use of Reserves Remains Reasonable.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

The 2026-27 Budget: Department of Justice

Feb 11, 2026 - If the fee levels are lower than current or projected costs, the Legislature would be better equipped to assess (1)  how much of this workload needs to be supported from the General Fund at the cost of other budget priorities or (2)  whether the cost of the workload needs to be reduced —such as through statutory or other changes —to avoid such budgetary trade-offs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5118

The 2025-26 Budget: Department of Justice

Feb 19, 2025 - We also recommend the Legislature provide DOJ with direction on how much of BFS operation revenues should come from local, state, and other agencies (such as one ‑third or one ‑half), as well as whether the Legislature plans to directly appropriate a specific General Fund amount to support a certain level of services for state agencies.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4972

Overview and Update on the Prison Receivership

Nov 8, 2023 - Accordingly, the October 2021 order specifies that the state and the Receiver shall implement any changes in laws and regulation necessary to eliminate the need for the waivers implemented by the Receiver as much as possible.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4813

The California State Bar: Assessment of Proposed Disciplinary Case Processing Standards

Jan 6, 2023 - Accordingly, the resulting study may suffer which could lead to both too many resources or too few resources being identified as being needed —and potentially provided —to support OCTC workload. Difficult to Assess Impact of Additional Positions Funded in 2019.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4655

Assessing the Provision of Criminal Indigent Defense

Sep 22, 2022 - Wainwright (1963) found that the right to counsel is “fundamental and essential to fair trials ” in the United States and that defendants who are too poor to hire attorneys cannot be assured of a fair trial unless attorneys are provided by the government.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4623