California Prison Officials Failed to Timely Investigate Thousands of Misconduct Complaints, Report Finds

The semiannual report, sent to the governor and state Legislature, details how the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) handled internal investigations and officer discipline between January and July. While the report said CDCR's overall handling of misconduct "has improved," it noted the performance of the Allegation Investigation Unit (AIU) has "declined dramatically."

The AIU was set up in 2022 to more thoroughly address the thousands of complaints made by incarcerated people each year. Recent reports from the inspector general reveal an escalating crisis in the unit, driven by ballooning caseloads, delayed investigations and a growing backlog. In contrast, the Office of Internal Affairs, which handles serious criminal allegations and complaints from other staff members, stayed largely consistent in its performance.

Former AIU chief David Starnes told KQED that when he took over two years ago, CDCR's executive leadership knew there was a flood of complaints but undermined his efforts to triage cases and hire staff. When he retired last month, Starnes said the unit was completely overwhelmed. The number of open cases topped 10,000 in June 2025; the latest report finds that number has nearly doubled to 19,000, with a single investigator averaging 135 open cases at a time. "We had them as high as 200 cases at one point," Starnes said, noting those cases didn't go away. "They're still sitting in a queue and the department, quote-unquote, 'is gonna work them someday.'"

Under California's peace officers' bill of rights, if an agency doesn't investigate a complaint within a year, it can't discipline officers. The inspector general warned in December 2025 that 705 cases were within 60 days of the deadline. Its next report in May found the deadline had expired in 1,774 cases. The latest report finds that number has doubled again, to 3,428 cases.

Penny Godbold, an attorney with Rosen, Bien, Galvan & Grunfeld, which has a long-running class action lawsuit called Armstrong v. Newsom on behalf of people in prison with disabilities, said, "The harm is significant." Starnes said a decade ago this 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 Armstrong case has been a key driver of the backlog, Starnes said, because it led to the redefinition of staff misconduct. The AIU must take every complaint at face value, unlike the Office of Internal Affairs which has a "reasonable belief" standard that allows agents to quickly dismiss complaints contradicted by facts. "So, if you just say something happened, we're investigating it," Starnes said. Godbold said the standard changed for a reason: credible complaints by incarcerated people were getting thrown out. "It is true that the number of cases increased under the new system," she said. "That was by design."

CDCR spokesperson Terri Hardy wrote in an email that the agency "takes staff misconduct allegations seriously, and timely, thorough investigations are essential to accountability and the safety of our institutions." She said the agency has created a four-tier prioritization system and increased staffing.

The inspector general recommended that CDCR use technology to better prioritize cases. Starnes said the AIU had started using artificial intelligence technology like Microsoft Co-Pilot to help review documents, transcribe interviews and write reports. The inspector general credited the department with communicating about case backlogs and expired deadlines and largely approved of how it was using a new "special conditions closure process" to quickly close cases where audio or video footage "provides conclusive evidence that the alleged misconduct did not occur."

Godbold and Starnes both said that reviewing body-worn camera footage is the best way to triage cases. So far, Godbold said, just 10 of California's 31 prisons have implemented body cameras.