California prisons no longer withhold money they are supposed to give people at the time of their release. The policy change is meant to ensure that thousands of people leaving prison receive their $200 "gate money" allowance that they are entitled to under a 51-year-old state law. The stipend is intended to help people cover basic necessities in their first days of freedom, the Associated Press reports. The new directive follows a class-action lawsuit and a legislative order mandating the department to stop withholding cash from former inmates. The corrections department did not deny that it deducted money from release allowances if someone did not have dress-out clothes or arrangements for transportation. “We’re frustrated and disappointed that it took a lawsuit ... to change an unlawful Department of Corrections’ policy, which should have been in compliance with the law from the very beginning,” said Chesa Boudin, a lawyer who filed the suit.
The case filed by UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center and the law firm Edelson PC alleged that the agency illegally docked fees from over a million people since 1994. The lawsuit said state “routinely withholds some or all of the funds based on eligibility criteria of its own making, criteria that violate the plain language of the law.” Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a funding bill on Sept. 30 that gave the department an additional $1.8 million for clothing and transportation costs for a year. A 2008 report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center said that the first 72 hours after someone is released from prison are paramount to the success of their long-term reentry. The lawsuit describes the release funds as a “critical lifeline” and “small but vital aid.”The lawsuit seeks retroactive payments for those who had gate money funds deducted or were denied entirely.
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