California’s Number 1 Export: Crime.

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino Can’t Fix

By Don Garrett, Investigative Reporter – Onlyguards LLC

Corrections or comments: cdcrfiredup@protonmail.com

FBI leaders Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are fighting to restore law and order across the country, pushing for accountability, enforcement, and the protection of American communities. But their efforts are being quietly undermined in California, where the state’s prison system has become a revolving door and the largest exporter of violent offenders. Inside the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), management has abandoned its duty to the public and made a mockery of justice. With policy restricting Officers from simply placing handcuffs on inmates, the handcuffs have been placed on Officers.

Whistleblowers working as correctional counselors report that so-called 'emergency regulation credits' are being handed out to nearly every inmate, cutting sentences drastically. Parole agents say that under management’s direction, it’s now harder than ever to return parolees to custody — even when they’re caught committing new crimes or carrying firearms. This isn’t criminal justice reform. It’s administrative negligence dressed up as progress.

The result is predictable and tragic. In 2022, Darnell Erby, released early from Folsom Prison, was arrested for the murder and dismemberment of 77-year-old Pamela May in the Sacramento area. Her brutal killing is one of many examples of how California’s management culture — one that values political optics over public safety — is literally costing innocent lives.

Others question the death of Parole Agent Joshua Byrd, claiming the departments management is to blame and his death was preventable. I attended the academy with Byrd in 2014, so this particular case is hard hitting and important to investigate. Factors surrounding his death indicate there are other systemic problems with the department making Parole Agents targets. Factors related to the parolee’s prior behavior have been kept tight, and management has made one thing clear. Leaking that information will get you fired. After trying to reach parole agents close to his unit, I have found that management has instilled fear in every agent. If you are reading this, speak out.

Insiders describe a toxic management structure built on verbal directives, where orders are rarely written down and accountability is avoided at all costs. Supervisors issue spoken commands to ignore crimes, downgrade violations, and keep violent offenders on the streets to preserve departmental 'statistics.' This informal, undocumented chain of command has created a culture of fear and retaliation so deep that many within the system now joke that CDCR stands for the 'California Department of Corruption and Retaliation.'

The problem runs deeper than one department. Oversight bodies such as the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) appear either unwilling or unable to challenge CDCR’s management, allowing misconduct and mismanagement to continue unchecked. The system has collapsed inward under political pressure and bureaucratic self-preservation. California’s politics have turned its corrections system into a liability for national security. Yes, you read that right. National Security is at stake with the amount of violent offenders being released on the streets by CDCR.

Federal oversight is no longer optional — it’s a national necessity. Patel and Bongino’s federal crime initiatives can’t succeed when a state as large and influential as California deliberately weakens its own enforcement structure. Federal intervention into CDCR’s management practices, parole decisions, and internal corruption is critical to restoring the rule of law and preventing more preventable tragedies like Pamela May’s murder and the death of Joshua Byrd.

Until CDCR’s leadership culture of verbal orders, retaliation, and political gamesmanship is dismantled, California will continue exporting chaos, not justice. Patel and Bongino can fix federal law enforcement — but they can’t fix a state that refuses to police itself.

This article was edited using ChatGPT.