Watchdog Finds Barely 1 in 10 Complaints Against California Prison Staff Handled Adequately
by Chuck Sharman
In its 41st semiannual report on staff investigations by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the state Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that prison officials adequately handled complaints against prison staff in just 10 of 89 cases reviewed—a little over 11%. The report, issued on December 3, 2025, found that the CDCR did slightly better handling disciplinary and criminal investigations against staffers; the OIG found that was “adequate” in 14% of those cases, or 28 of 199 reviewed.
Basing its assessment on the CDCR’s adherence to its own policy guidelines, the OIG found prison officials were “inadequate” in handling almost 54% of complaints against staff and 43% of disciplinary and criminal investigations. In the remainder—35% of complaints against staff and 43% of disciplinary and criminal investigations—the OIG found “improvement needed.” The report was the first to use these terms, replacing previous ratings that found CDCR’s response “sufficient,” “sufficient with recommendations” or “insufficient.”
The number of cases reviewed represented a fraction of the total, and the CDCR’s Allegation Investigation Unit (AIU) had more than 10,000 investigations still open as of June 30, 2025. New investigations were being opened “at a much faster rate” than existing investigations were being cleared, letting the one-year statute of limitations lapse for taking disciplinary action against “peace officers.” Bloating this backlog of unresolved cases, the CDCR maintained a “practice of performing duplicative investigations when more than one person reports or complains about the same misconduct,” the OIG noted.
One of two main ways that an investigation into CDCR staff begins is when an allegation is discovered by the “hiring authority”—typically management-level officials at a prison. If they find “a reasonable belief that misconduct occurred,” policy dictates referring the allegation to the CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs (OIA) for investigation within 45 days. Then, once the IA’s investigative report is returned, a conference must be held within 14 days to review the findings. Notice of any disciplinary action must then be served on peace officers within 30 days. Alarmingly, the OIG found that hiring authorities failed to keep to this schedule 61% of the time. In 31% of cases, they also made “poor decisions” after receiving investigative reports “deciding whether to sustain allegations, deciding whether to impose discipline, and deciding the type of discipline to imposed.” As a result, the OIG invoked “executive review” of nine cases.
One was the case of guard Lt. Refugio Manuel Jimenez, Jr., whose botched pyrotechnics at a September 2020 “gender-reveal” event for the baby his wife was expecting ignited the El Dorado fire. The 71-day blaze then torched over 23,000 acres of San Diego County and killed 39-year-old U.S. Forest Service “Hot Shot Squad” boss Charlie Morton. The CDCR recommended dismissal for Jimenez and his wife, fellow guard Angela Renee Jimenez. But they resigned before the discipline could be served. When Jimenez then appealed to the state Personnel Board, the CDCR settled with an offer to reduce his penalty to a nine-month suspension. The OIG cried foul and initiated an executive review, at the end of which the Personnel Board sustained the original dismissal decision.
The other primary route to an investigation begins with a staff misconduct complaint, often filed by someone incarcerated. Though these complaints may be investigated by prison staff, or the OIA in the most serious cases, many are turned over to the AIU. Yet its work was found “inadequate” over half the time, thanks to “delayed investigations, inadequate consultation, and failure to conduct thorough investigations,” the OIG said.
One red flag noted was that an attorney from the CDCR’s Employment Advocacy and Protection Team (EAPT) was assigned to just 56—or 63%—of the 89 staff misconduct cases reviewed. By contrast, an EAPT lawyer was assigned to 100% of the 199 disciplinary and criminal investigations that the OIG looked at. In cases with only an employee relations officer assigned and no EAPT attorney, there was no legal advice for the OIG to assess. But in those cases with an EAPT attorney assigned, the OIG found unnecessary delays that contributed to the high percentage of cases it found inadequately handled. The OIG also said that it “frequently disagreed with the recommendations the department attorneys provided to hiring authorities.” The CDCR Office of Legal Affairs was further called out for “significant” delays in “referring matters to the [OIG] for Investigation.”
On a brighter note, the CDCR added a new Centralized Allegation Resolution Unit and staffed it “with independent hiring authorities responsible for reviewing investigative reports from the [AIU] and making disciplinary findings.” Since then, the OIG said it has found indications of “improvements in the thoroughness and timeliness with which hiring authorities are reviewing investigative reports and making disciplinary decisions, as well as an increase of allegations of misconduct being sustained.” See: Monitoring Internal Investigations, Staff Misconduct Complaint Investigations, and the Employee Disciplinary Process of the Calif. Dep’t of Corr. and Rehab. Semiannual Report Jan.–June 2025, Calif. OIG (Dec. 2025).
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