Posts Tagged: overcrowding

State ponders prison closures, as inmate population drops.

A dining room at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, which closed last year. (Photo: CDCR)

by BRIEANNA ANDERSON posted 08.02.2022

With California’s prison inmate population flatlining, authorities are pondering the closure of three institutions. But many questions remain. The 2022-2023 state budget notes that there is a possibility of three prison closures during 2024 and 2025, based at least in part in the reduction of California’s prison population to about 94,000 in prisons and camps

California won a two-year extension to meet a federal court order to cut its prison population, but a three-judge panel made clear Monday that it has doubts about the state’s handling of prison overcrowding. A three-judge federal panel accepted Gov. Jerry Brown’s new plan to reduce the population, but reprimanded the state for its delay in finding what they described as a “durable” solution to the prison crisis. The state has put inmates in out-of-state prisons and private custody.