SB 1358 Summary

• Establishes an office within the Department of Corrections to determine prisoner placement, prioritizing placement near children and considering other relevant factors.

• Requires adoption of visitation rules allowing prisoners who are primary caretaker parents at least six days per week visits (including weekends), with facilities open minimum eight hours daily, up to five adult and unlimited child visitors, and physical contact unless prisoner poses immediate danger.

• Mandates provision of parenting classes, trauma-informed care, and training for correctional staff to identify and refer prisoners with trauma; also requires access to gynecologists for female prisoners and free videoconferencing for all prisoners.

• Requires free provision of specified health care products to prisoners (tampons, sanitary napkins, soap, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and pain relievers) and prohibits strip searches and restroom entry by officers of opposite sex except in emergency situations.

• Designates an ombudsman through the Attorney General to oversee prisoner transportation, segregated housing use, strip searches, and civil rights violations; establishes an overnight visitation program for eligible primary caretaker parents with good behavior records, excluding those convicted of violent crimes, ending July 1, 2029.