A new analysis tracks what became of California prison inmates released early during the COVID outbreaks of 2020 and 2021, and finds that just over 30% of them committed crimes again and found themselves back in prison.

Back during the darkest days of COVID in 2020 and 2021, we saw the recurring tragic story of COVID outbreaks at San Quentin and other California prisons, with the San Quentin outbreak alone claiming 29 lives. So the state of California made a trade-off, choosing to release about 15,000 prisoners from the cramped and high-risk quarters of its prisons, reducing the prison popualtion, and sending the least violent offenders of the bunch to ride out the remainder of their sentences at home.  

A new analysis from CalMatters tracks what happened to those released early between April 2020 and December 2021. And those numbers show that nearly one-third of those released ended up back in prison. That is, 14,800 prisoners were released early during that period, and about 4,600 (31%) found themselves convicted of another crime and back in prison at some point before January 31, 2025.

Of course, the flip-side of this is that nearly 70% of those released early did not commit more crimes. And of those who did recede back into crime, these were by and large not cold-blooded murders. The breakdown of the crimes these individuals committed after release were illegal possession of a gun (14%), assault (10%), burglary (9%), and crimes like vehicle theft, robbery, and domestic abuse all in the 4%-5% range.

These results did not surprise the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, who say that nonviolent offenders tend to repeat their crimes at higher rates.

“People eligible for expedited release were non-serious/non-violent, a demographic with a higher tendency to recidivate,” department spokesperson Albert Lundeen told CalMatters. “It is expected that return rates for this subgroup would be higher than overall recidivism rates.”

Still, CalMatters’ analysis has some horror stories of people who did commit violent or despicable crimes. One early-released prisoner strangled a woman to death in San Diego, a cocaine offender shot up a car and killed a woman, a burglar killed someone in a Long Beach DUI crash, and a drug dealer traded cannabis for nude Snapchat photos of minors.  

Those are the outliers. And one could still say that the nearly 70% who did not commit crimes made the early release program a success, with a sort of glass half-full (or more than two-thirds full) kind of argument.

Supporters of re-entry programs also point out that at the height of COVID, when these individuals were released early, there really were no structured re-entry programs, perhaps setting up these recently incarcerated people for failure.

“There was no funding available to … pick people up from prison, bring them to housing beds that were not available, provide them with any type of case management system,” Creating Restorative Opportunities and Programs (CROP) president Terah Lawyer told CalMatters. “This was a very, very trying time in our community."

Related: Another COVID Outbreak Hits San Quentin, Despite High Vaccination Rate Among Inmates [SFist]

Image: Walk south along the west facing prison fence (Getty Images)