California is increasing restrictions at its highest security men’s prisons, including at a facility in Los Angeles County where two officers have been stabbed in the last 10 days, as it conducts investigations into a “concerning rise” in violence, drug overdoses and contraband.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced the immediate implementation of a “modified program” at 21 of its Level III and Level IV — the two highest security tiers — facilities across the state in a press release Thursday, June 12.
A modified program is not a full lockdown, but it does impose severe restrictions on inmates’ movement throughout the facilities and cuts off access to visitations, phone calls and electronic communications until it is lifted.
The restrictions follow a “recent and concerning rise in violent incidents directed towards both staff and incarcerated individuals” as well as an “increase in overdose cases and findings of contraband,” officials said in the press release.
All movement within those facilities, including access to showers, “will be conducted in a controlled and secure manner.” Meals will be delivered to housing units directly in Level IV units, while access to dining halls at Level III facilities will be “under controlled conditions,” according to CDCR.
Two inmates have been slain inside CDCR facilities in Lassen and Kern counties since the start of the month, records show. In Lancaster, inmates at the state prison attacked officers with makeshift weapons twice in a 10-day period and are now under investigation for attempted murder.
Michael O’Neill, 42, who is serving time for burglary and robbery, allegedly stabbed an officer during the morning meal on June 1 and then attacked another as the second officer responded to help. Staff at the facility managed to stop the attack without any additional injuries, according to the CDCR.
Both officers were transported to an outside medical facility and later discharged, officials said.
Eight days later, Cosmin Badiu, 28, who is serving a burglary sentence, allegedly used an improvised weapon to attack a supervising correctional officer in the yard. The officer sustained “multiple puncture wounds to the back of the head” and staff had to use “physical force and chemical agents” to quell the attack, officials said.
The officer was transported to a hospital and was in good condition as of June 9.
Both incidents are under investigation. Badiu and O’Neill are expected to have their cases referred to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for felony charges, officials said.
Data released by California Correctional Health Care Services indicates there have been 148 deaths in state prisons since the start of the year. Of those, 12 were homicides and nine were drug overdoses. Investigations into the causes of death for 34 of the cases are still pending.
By this time last year, 194 inmates had died in custody statewide. That figure jumped to 419 total by the end of 2024.
Locally, there have been 15 deaths in state prison facilities in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties since January, the records showed. Three of those deaths were homicides, while two were attributed to drug overdoses.
A total of 57 people died in state prisons in those three counties in 2024. Only one of those was a homicide.
An analysis of in-custody deaths from 2006 to 2023 by the California Correctional Health Care Service lists cancer as the leading cause of death in California’s state prisons for nearly every year until 2023, when drug overdoses became the top cause. Homicides typically have fallen in the fifth or sixth rank across the nearly 20-year period reviewed.
The rise in overdoses seemingly continued in 2024, with cancer and drug overdoses each accounting for 79 deaths, according to the state’s data. The second highest cause, cardiovascular disease, was attributed to 59 deaths, by comparison.
This is the second time this year that CDCR has implemented a modified program at its facilities following violent incidents. Similar restrictions were put in place in March in response to a “surge in violence against staff and incarcerated people,” but those restrictions were limited only to Level IV facilities at the time.
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