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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Drug overdose deaths in California state prisons rebounded to near record levels last year even as corrections officials touted the state’s intervention methods as a model for prisons and jails across the United States. At least 59 prisoners died of overdoses last year, according to a KFF Health News analysis of deaths in custody data the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is required to report under a new state law. That’s more than double the number who died of overdoses in each of 2020 (23) and 2021 (24). Prison officials would not provide the numbe…

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