CDCR Fully Closes Two Prisons, Parts of Six Others

On Tuesday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced plans to close two more prisons, and plans to deactivate parts of six other prisons. The prisons to be closed include Chuckawalla State Prison in Blythe CA and the California City Correctional Facility in California City CA, which the state leases and is the state’s last privately run prison. CDCR sets the deadline for the Chuckwalla closure by March 2025, while the lease for the California City facility will end in March 2024.

What the department calls deactivations are planned at six prisons, according to CDCR. In addition to Facility D at California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi CA, these are Facility A at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco CA, Facility D at the California Institution for Men in Chino CA, Facility C at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City CA, the West Facility at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo CA, and the Folsom Women’s Facility in Folsom, CA.

The state once had 34 adult prisons, including the leased facility and a prison hospital facility at Stockton. During the 2020-21 budget process, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to close two state prisons. According to CDCR numbers, California prisons housed 173,000 inmates in 2006. As of Monday Dec. 5, it was housing 92,552 prisoners. The declining prison population is, to a large degree, fueling the prison closures and deactivations of CDCR prison facilities.

“Our community applauds this move toward reversing California’s terrible history of prison expansion,” said Amber-Rose Howard, executive director of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, or CURB, a statewide coalition promoting the reduction of incarcerated people in California. “We hope yard deactivations are done safely, and that they are an indication of the future prison closures we all know are possible over the next several years.”

Read the official closure notice from CDCR here.