The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

"Bulldoze it down," exclaimed Debbie Reyes, a representative of the Oakland-based California Prison Moratorium Project. Reyes said she favors turning over the 134-acre prison grounds to the business sector. Anything but a prison, she said.

Reyes said she has redoubled efforts to rally opposition among community groups in San Joaquin County. They plan to take their case to the county Board of Supervisors, which has so far been unresponsive, she said. Board Chairman Steve Gutierrez did not return calls last week seeking comment on the prison.

"He can go to the Legislature and say, 'We don't want anymore of these types of facilities in the community,' " Reyes said. "We want something healthy for the community."

Opened in 1987, the 800-bed prison was emptied of inmates in 2003 in a cost-saving measure. The prison is on an arid swath of land east of Highway 99 near a complex of state-run youth prisons, including the N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility.

California's adult prison population this month reached an all-time high with 165,378 inmates, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Elaine Jennings. The women's prison gives the state a real-life setting, with prison cells, guard towers and recreational yards where hundreds of badly needed correctional officers can be trained. Department of Corrections officials had talked of turning the women's prison into a reception center such as Tracy's Deuel Vocational Center where inmates entering the system are temporarily held before being assigned to a prison to serve their sentences.

Deuel is at 219 percent of capacity. Some inmates sleep on bunk beds set up in a gym converted into a dorm. Overcrowding two years ago in the dorms sparked a riot.

But filling the women's prison with inmates would exacerbate the state's shortage of correctional officers, Jennings said. The state anticipates large numbers of correctional officers to retire in the next two years.

"Really, what it came down to, we have a critical need for more staff," Jennings said. "At this time, this is the best use for this facility."

The state plans to use the women's prison as an academy for up to five years. At that time, its future will be reconsidered, Jennings said.

Luis Magaña, a Stockton activist, said he has organized at least three meetings in Stockton to debate options for using the former women's prison. He could not get representatives to attend in an official capacity. State officials are working in secrecy, he said.

"It's tax money," Magaña said, "but they're making decisions without us that could negatively affect our community."

Ari Wohlfeiler, a representative of the Oakland-based Critical Resistance, which advocates for fewer prisons, said as long as the prison stands, it can be easily filled with more inmates. Wohlfeiler said he's skeptical about state officials talking about prison reform.

"It's something that could be turned over in a quick second," Wohlfeiler said. "They're clearly hedging their bets that they're going to shrink."

Bob Driscoll, a Lancaster salesman whose son has been incarcerated more than five years in a prison in Lancaster, said overcrowded prisons are unhealthy. More prison space is needed if the state is going to continue incarcerating people, he said.

"Their punishment is to be taken away from society, not to go in and suffer a hardship," Driscoll said.

Contact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546-8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com
from the Stockton Record http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200550829007