Call for enlarging Central Valley prisons

SACRAMENTO
April 2, 2009 4:00am

Three of California’s largest prisons in the Central Valley would be built even bigger under plans being put forth by the state Department of Corrections.

If developed as proposed, the Central Valley and a Central Coast prisons would add a total of 2,800 more inmates.

The high-security Kern Valley state prison and the medium-security North Kern state prison, both near Delano, would be enlarged to take in an additional 900 inmates each.

In addition, a juvenile prison near Paso Robles would be remodeled into a prison to house about 1,000 older inmates.

The building program also includes a re-entry center in Stockton for 500 inmates. Re-entry centers are supposed to help inmates transition successfully to life outside the walls.

There are also preliminary plans to enlarge the medium-security Wasco State Prison.

Construction costs would be funded by a nearly $8 billion bond measure approved by voters two years ago.

The Legislature would have to approve the construction program.

Comments on this story

Frank Courser 4/10/09 8:28 AM
Unfortunately things will not change for any of the 33 state prisons. The CDCr ignores complaints, ignores court orders and ignores the legislature. There is no incentive or motivation for change. Not until the governor and legislature force change will it ever happen! It will take a population reduction, sentencing reform, parole reform and replacing the BPH with qualified judges. The system is broken and has been for years! California’s complex and bizarre sentencing schemes such as Three Strikes keep our prisons jammed! There is no rehabilitation, so inmates return home is far worse shape than when they entered prison. The governor cut education programs which made thing even worse! And now the only answer they can come up with is to expand a completely broken system that will result in a bigger more broken system! For almost $50,000 dollars we spend per inmate, we should get much more for our corrections dollar!