Bill Seeks Increased Media Access To Prisons And Incarcerated Interviewees

In 1994, then-California Governor Pete Wilson signed a bill giving the state prison system more authority to block journalists from entering prisons to report on conditions inside. By 1996, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had pulled up the drawbridge, instituting what were considered some of the most restrictive policies in the nation. Between 1998 and 2012, state lawmakers tried and failed to reverse the CDCR’s limits on media access nine times.

Legislators are prepared to try again this year.

On March 28, a bill to increase media access to lockups will begin making its way through California’s Senate, with a first stop at the Committee on Public Safety. 

SB 254, authored by Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), will permit members of the news media to tour prisons and jails and interview consenting incarcerated people. Members of the media will be allowed to use cameras and audio recorders. Currently, journalists who do make it into jails and prisons are usually banned from recording, and are only able to conduct random interviews.

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