Existing law makes it a crime for a person who has the care or custody of a child to willfully cause or permit the person or health of that child to be injured or willfully cause or permit that child to be placed in a situation where the child’s health may be endangered, as specified. Existing law imposes a 4-year enhancement on a person who violates that provision and who willfully causes or permits a child to suffer, inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or injury that results in death, or, having the care or custody of a child, willfully causes or permits that child to be injured or harmed, as specified, and that injury or harm results in death.

Existing law requires a person who, having the care or custody of a child who is under 8 years of age, assaults the child by means of force that to a reasonable person would be likely to produce great bodily injury, resulting in the child’s death, to be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for 25 years to life.

Under existing law, a prisoner can reduce their term of imprisonment by earning credit for, among other things, continuous incarceration, good behavior, and participation in approved rehabilitative programming. The California Constitution grants to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation the sole authority to award credits for good behavior and approved rehabilitative or educational achievements. Existing law prohibits a prisoner convicted of specified felony offenses from earning credit if the prisoner previously has been convicted of one of those felony offenses 2 or more times and has served 2 or more separate prior prison terms.

Existing law makes an inmate of a state prison, or of a county jail, who has completed training for assignment to a correctional institution as an inmate firefighter, or who is assigned to a correctional institution as an inmate firefighter, eligible to earn 2 days of credit for every one day served in that assignment or after completing that training.

This bill, Ryla’s Law, would make a person convicted of specific child abuse crimes ineligible to earn 2 days of credit for every one day served as an inmate firefighter or after completing inmate firefighting training. By reducing the amount of credits an inmate sentenced to county jail can earn, this bill would create a state-mandated local program.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.