SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) While the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation currently publishes monthly data of its population in its custody, people admitted, released and paroled, many ethnicity types, including Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Indigenous people are categorized as “other” in its monthly population reports.
(b) The state of California has invested in various programs to provide rehabilitative services to incarcerated individuals. For example, the Budget Act of 2019 established the California Reentry and Enrichment (CARE) Grant program that provides nonprofit organizations to design and provide transformative programs
in California prisons. The goal of the program is to help individuals understand the causes and consequences of their behavior and address and treat symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
(c) However, because it is unknown to the public how many Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Indigenous people are currently in the California prison system, their experiences and urgency of needs are left out in these programs.
(d) From 2019 to 2021, inclusive, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, a California organization that provides direct support to Asian and Pacific Islander prisoners conducted a statewide survey in our prisons in an attempt to paint a fuller portrait of our prison system population and better serve those in the prison system and their reentry plans.
(e) The survey shows that a majority of more than 500
respondents indicated war as being the main cause for displacement from their country of origin. When people resettle in the United States, they often experience economic hardship and violence. Many of these respondents react to these forms of trauma by joining a gang to find community.
(f) Southeast Asian adults have the highest rate of post-traumatic stress disorder compared with the general population due to war trauma, poverty, and other challenges after they or their families fled from various wars in the 1970s to 1980s, inclusive.
(g) Disaggregated data provides better insight on racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system. For example, while Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander make up 0.5 percent of the San Francisco County population, the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department 2010 report showed that Samoan youth make up 5 percent of all youth booked in
its juvenile hall that year.
(h) In order to better serve Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Indigenous people, closing service gaps and ensure incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people receive culturally competent and sensitive in-prison and reentry programs, collection of the number of Indigenous people, and additional Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander ethnic groups is critical for enhancing understanding of the needs and experiences of these different communities.