UC Irvine

Situated in the context of a long history contentious politics and ebbs and flows in the volume and content of in-prison programing, this article draws on an original data set to offer an empirical assessment of the landscape of in-prison rehabilitative programs currently offered by the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR). A content analysis of 1,637 programs offered in 32 prisons in California reveals a diverse portfolio of programs originating from the CDCR and outside organizations that have conservative, liberal, and radical theoretical underpinnings. In particular, CDCR provides programming aligned with its stated mission; CDCR programming arced toward liberalism even more so than non-CDCR programming; and programs with radical frameworks are outsourced by the department but still made available to incarcerated Californians despite the lack of radical values in CDCR’s mission statement. Ultimately, this project provides a contemporary inventory and analysis of California prison programs to understand better how the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation situates and actualizes the rehabilitative ideal in state prisons in 2022 and sets the stage for a more granulated assessment of how these programs manifest and with what consequences for warehousing, skill-building, and transformation in the lives of people who are incarcerated. Keywords: in-prison program, rehabilitation, California, political ideology