A California lawmaker says he will press for oversight hearings after state prison officials imposed lockdowns during an intense heat wave at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility last month.
In an interview with KPBS, Assembly Public Safety Committee Chair Nick Schultz said he was gravely concerned for the health of incarcerated people at the state prison in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego. He said he would seek clarity from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state prison system.
“Just because someone has committed a serious crime and might be doing time at Donovan does not mean that they should be subject to cruel and unusual conditions,” said Schultz, a Democratic assemblymember from Burbank. “I will push for information and answers from CDCR when we return in January.”
The lawmaker’s remarks came in response to KPBS’ reporting last week that Donovan officials locked down parts of the prison for multiple days during the heat wave in September.
As temperatures spiked to 94 degrees indoors, several incarcerated people said, correctional officers restricted their access to large fans, ice water and other ways to stay cool.
Schultz said those reports raised serious questions about the effectiveness of CDCR’s heat safety plan, especially during security protocols like lockdowns.
He plans to call on the Assembly to schedule oversight hearings in Sacramento when the new legislative session begins in January. During those hearings, lawmakers can ask state prison officials specific questions about the heat plan.
“CDCR is the single biggest state agency and the single biggest component of the public safety portion of our budget,” Schultz said. “That’s our responsibility.”
Advocates and civil rights lawyers say the current heat plan doesn’t go far enough to protect incarcerated people as climate change brings more frequent and more intense heat waves to California. For example, it lists cooling measures like ice water and fans but doesn’t specify when to implement those measures.
The plan also does not include any specific language about lockdowns, said Lily Harvey, a staff attorney with the Prison Law Office in Berkeley.
CDCR’s lockdown and heat safety protocols both serve important purposes, Schultz said. But he thinks the legislature needs to make sure that when those plans overlap, they don’t put anyone in danger.
“Climate change is real, the temperature on the surface of the planet is increasing,” he said. “Perhaps that means that the heat plan should evolve as well.”
During the heatwave, the prison also had air conditioning systems break down in its medical facilities, according to CDCR. A department spokesperson said they immediately installed temporary cooling units and relocated some at-risk incarcerated people.
Schultz also called on Amarik Singh, California’s Inspector General, to audit Donovan ahead of the legislative session.
Part of Singh’s responsibility is to serve as an independent monitor of the state prison system. In 2025, her office audited extreme temperatures at three other prisons. They found CDCR staff were failing to consistently track temperatures in housing areas and did not have procedures in place to protect many people.
In an email to KPBS, a spokesperson for Singh said her office was currently busy with three other audits. But they said the reported conditions at Donovan did mirror some of their findings from last year.
“If we were to perform a follow-up audit on this process in the future, the issues… would provide a compelling reason to include RJD within the scope of that audit,” wrote spokesperson Shaun Spillane.
The questions for CDCR come as the agency faces intense scrutiny on multiple fronts. In August, the U.S. Justice Department said state prison officials had failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse and harassment.
For Schultz, the issue also raises questions about the agency’s budget, which he said has continued to grow even as most other state departments and agencies are being asked to restrict spending.
If lawmakers continue to allocate more funding to CDCR, Schultz said he would expect the department to direct a significant portion of that money to protecting incarcerated peoples’ health and safety.
A former top prosecutor with the California Attorney General’s office, Schultz said the act of incarcerating someone was incredibly serious. He said he wanted incarcerated people and their loved ones to know that he shared their concerns.
“Speaking from my little corner of the world, I hear you loud and clear,” he said, “If we are going to throw the book at someone… and prosecute them, we have an equal responsibility to ensure that they have an opportunity to rehabilitate and to exit and re-enter society.”
