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Pen. Code, § 5009 · Chapter 1. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Pen. Code, § 5009

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) (1) It is the intent of the Legislature that all prisoners shall be afforded reasonable opportunities to exercise religious freedom.

(2) It is the intent of the Legislature that all prisoners shall be afforded religious grooming, clothing, and headwear accommodations in accordance with Section 2607.

(b) (1) Except in extraordinary circumstances, upon the transfer of an inmate to another state prison institution, any member of the clergy or spiritual adviser who has been previously authorized by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to visit that inmate shall be granted visitation privileges at the institution to which the inmate is transferred within 72 hours of the transfer.

(2) Visitations by members of the clergy or spiritual advisers shall be subject to the same rules, regulations, and policies relating to general visitations applicable at the institution to which the inmate is transferred.

(3) A departmental or volunteer chaplain who has ministered to or advised an inmate incarcerated in state prison may, voluntarily and without compensation, continue to minister to or advise the inmate while they are on parole, provided that the departmental or volunteer chaplain so notifies the warden and the parolee’s parole agent in writing.

(c) Nothing in this section limits the department’s ability to prohibit a departmental chaplain from ministering to a parolee, or to exclude a volunteer chaplain from department facilities, if either is found to be in violation of any law or regulation and that violation would ordinarily be grounds for adverse action or denial of access to a facility or person under the department’s custody.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 388, Sec. 4. (SB 309) Effective January 1, 2024.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=5009.
Text hash
sha256 dc1210b547684767880b0fbf0598594958787c234b078ca694606eff262eab3d
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.