California senator pushing for media access to prisons

OAKLAND, Calif. -  A California state senator wrote a bill to allow media to have better access to state prisons and county jails, inspired, in part, by KTVU reporting. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) is now on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk. SB 254 would allow news organizations to interview incarcerated people and use video cameras, which is typically not allowed under current policies. The legislation would also allow lawmakers and other state officials to access prisons in order to improve transparency and oversight. 

In an interview on Wednesday, Skinner explained why she is pushing for this access.

"You take good media outlets, like KTVU, which did excellent reporting on the horrible ‘Rape Club,’ the situation in the Dublin federal prison, where there was just rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse against the women. And then the deaths that occurred in Alameda County Jail, which again, KTVU put the spotlight on to help the public see that it has then caused some changes which were very important."

FCI Dublin is a federal prison, which has refused tour requests by KTVU. Santa Rita Jail is in Alameda County and has allowed KTVU in with cameras. The California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation is the state prison system, which typically doesn't allow reporters in with cameras to interview incarcerated people. 

Skinner said it wasn't always this way.

Before the 1990s, news organizations could enter prisons with TV cameras and check out the conditions. But state laws were passed before she came to the Legislature that began curbing the media's access. 

And since then, Skinner said, "we've just closed the box on that…and very little journalism access since that time." 

Her bill would allow the news media to access the prison if they have permission from the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, but there would be very few circumstances where the agency could say no. 

In addition, lawmakers like herself would be able to get into the prisons, too.

Skinner said that is important as she used to chair the subcommittee on the budget that dealt with the prison system. CDCR would request money for "all kinds of things," and she said that she'd have to make her decisions "completely on their assessment" of what they wanted with "no ability to go and look for ourselves." 

Skinner acknowledges that the CDCR "doesn't love" her bill, and they prefer the "status quo." 

But she added that in her mind, her office addressed their major concerns. 

"I mean, we're now one of the worst in the country in terms of states with giving media access to our correctional facilities," Skinner said. "This would put us more in line with Florida, Maine, Rhode Island, states like that."