The complaints include serious allegations of violence and neglect: one prisoner said officers attacked him and sent him to the hospital for five days; another said an officer grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into concrete; an incarcerated woman alleged an officer refused to take her for a sexual assault examination.

The backlog is concentrated in the Allegation Investigation Unit (AIU), a division created in 2022 to more thoroughly and fairly address the thousands of complaints made by incarcerated people each year. While the inspector general found that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s overall handling of misconduct “has improved,” it noted that the AIU’s performance has “declined dramatically.” The unit is plagued by delays, unmanageable caseloads, and a skyrocketing backlog of grievances, the report said.

“The harm is significant,” said Penny Godbold, an attorney with Rosen, Bien, Galvan & Grunfeld, which has a long-running class action lawsuit against the department called Armstrong v. Newsom on behalf of people in prison with disabilities. Godbold said the surge in cases was intentional. “It is true that the number of cases increased under the new system,” she said. “That was by design.”

The Armstrong case led to a redefinition of staff misconduct that requires the AIU to take every complaint at face value, unlike the department’s traditional Office of Internal Affairs, which handles serious criminal allegations and complaints from staff members and applies a “reasonable belief” standard that allows agents to quickly dismiss complaints contradicted by evidence. “So, if you just say something happened, we’re investigating it,” said Starnes, referring to the AIU’s approach.

Starnes, who was not fully identified in the report, said that a decade ago such delays would have been unheard of. “If a case wasn’t investigated before the statute of limitations expired, you were the worst person in the world, and everybody across the state heard about it,” he said. “It just didn’t happen.”

The inspector general recommended that the department use technology to better prioritize cases, and Starnes said the AIU has started using artificial intelligence tools like Microsoft Co-Pilot to help review documents, transcribe interviews, and write reports. The report also credited the department with communicating about case backlogs and expired deadlines, and largely approved of a new “special conditions closure process” that allows cases to be quickly closed when audio or video footage provides conclusive evidence that the alleged misconduct did not occur.

Both Godbold and Starnes said that reviewing body-worn camera footage is the best way to triage cases and determine whether an allegation is founded. So far, just 10 of California’s 31 prisons have implemented body cameras, according to Godbold.

The report comes as the department faces ongoing scrutiny over its disciplinary system and its treatment of incarcerated people, particularly those with disabilities. The Armstrong lawsuit, which has been ongoing for years, has forced changes in how the department handles complaints, but the latest findings suggest that the promised reforms have yet to deliver timely justice for thousands of prisoners.