No. HB 889
Office of the Corrections Ombudsman; Creates Office of Corrections Ombudsman within legislative branch; provides for staff; specifies duties of office; provides for appointment of Corrections Ombudsman; requires that Ombudsman meet certain criteria; requires Legislature to establish Corrections Oversight Committee on or before certain date; provides duties & membership of committee; requires DOC to provide Ombudsman & committee members with access to certain department facilities & records; authorizes Ombudsman & committee members access to such facilities unannounced; requires confidentiality of in-person communications between incarcerated persons or facility staff members & Ombudsman or committee member; provides that correspondence between incarcerated person & office is privileged; provides that decision, or failure, to file complaint with office does not impact inmate grievance procedure; provides that office need not investigate or process complaints in order received; requires office to submit to President of Senate & Speaker of House of Representatives specified report annually; provides appropriation. APPROPRIATION: $250,000
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDThis bill creates the Office of the Corrections Ombudsman as an independent legislative-branch agency, separate from the Department of Corrections, to investigate complaints and monitor prison conditions statewide.
The Ombudsman and a 15-member oversight committee can enter any correctional facility at any time, unannounced, and speak privately with any incarcerated person or staff member.
The Department of Corrections must hand over any facility, staff member, or record the Ombudsman decides is needed. The Ombudsman cannot have worked for the department, or have close family who did, in the last decade.
The office sets its own investigation priorities and does not have to process complaints in the order they arrive. It reports to legislative leaders annually starting in 2027, backed by a $250,000 appropriation.
AIA new office is established inside the legislative branch, separate from the Department of Corrections, headed by an Ombudsman appointed by the Legislature, to receive and investigate complaints and monitor conditions of confinement.
AIThe Ombudsman and oversight committee members may walk into any correctional facility at any time without notice and hold private conversations with any incarcerated person or staff member.
AIThe Department of Corrections must give the Ombudsman and committee members immediate access to facilities, staff, and records whenever the Ombudsman or committee decides they are needed to do the office's work.
AIA person may not be appointed Ombudsman if they worked for the Department of Corrections, or had a family member who did, within the preceding 10 years, keeping the office independent of the agency it oversees.
AIThe 15-member Corrections Oversight Committee meets quarterly to advise the Ombudsman, but the Ombudsman is free to disregard that advice entirely and is not bound to follow it.
AIFiling, or not filing, a complaint with the new office has no effect on an incarcerated person's separate grievance rights under the department's existing inmate grievance procedure.
AIThe office is not obligated to investigate every complaint it receives, or to work through them in the order they come in, giving it discretion over which matters to pursue first.
AIWritten correspondence between an incarcerated person and the office, the Ombudsman, or a committee member is treated as privileged mail under the department's existing administrative rule.