When you’re serving exhausting time inside a California jail, you’ll typically end up caught in a cramped cell with a stranger. You dangle a bedsheet to fabricate the appearance of privateness between mattress and bathroom. Any little factor can erupt right into a supply of rigidity and angst — physique odor, loud night breathing, lights.
Every second turns into a take a look at to keep away from confrontation or brawling. With no speedy assist from officers, the worry and anxiousness festers inside you. And daily, your psychological well being deteriorates.
“You don’t essentially know what the capability of this individual is, or like what their crime is,” stated Steven Warren, a resident inside San Quentin Rehabilitation Middle. “You’re not informed any of that once you’re put in a cell with them.
“I don’t know if this individual has the propensity to homicide me in my sleep or commit a violent act in opposition to me simply because they’re feeling some kind of means.”
Some California policymakers and jail officers consider it’s time to rethink these probably dangerous housing conditions. They contend that providing extra single-occupancy cells would possibly serve one of the best pursuits of jail residents and public security.
That’s potential as a result of California’s incarcerated inhabitants continues to say no — from its peak of over 173,000 individuals in 2006 to fewer than 90,000 at this time. A handful of prisons have closed, whereas modifications in resentencing and parole eligibility have helped launch hundreds of people.
Beneath former Gov. Jerry Brown and now Gov. Gavin Newsom, rehabilitation and reentry alternatives stay a rising focus, too. San Quentin Rehabilitation Middle stands on the forefront of the dialogue, with an “earned residing” housing unit comprised completely of single-person cells and plans to equally repurpose the vacated Demise Row buildings. A spokesperson for the jail stated it’s “working towards” making single-person cells accessible to all incarcerated individuals by spring 2026.
A invoice superior within the California Legislature this yr that goals to set up single-cell models at extra prisons. The measure didn’t make it to Newsom, but it surely’s anticipated to return in 2026.
“We would like individuals to have the chance to return again to our neighborhood, and we would like them to do this within the healthiest method,” stated San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins, who helped draft the laws.
“You possibly can’t try this in the event you’re in an atmosphere that causes chaos and stress — or you’ll be able to’t sleep, you’re having confrontations, you’re irritable since you’re sleeping with one eye open.”
Conversations spark change
Jenkins visited San Quentin quite a few instances over the past two years and spoke with Warren and others. Extra importantly, she listened.
“One of many conversations that we had inside with various the residents was the cellmate on cellmate violence and the entire points that include sharing a cell,” stated Jenkins.
She reached out to Assemblymember Damon Connolly, the Democrat representing San Rafael. Collectively, they wrote the Meeting invoice that proposes establishing single-occupancy cell pilot packages at 4 California prisons.
“To correctly be capable to have interaction in rehabilitative programming,” states the invoice’s textual content. “Incarcerated individuals should be capable to sleep with out worry of bodily hurt.”
Connolly stated that single-cell housing models moreover promote safer work environments for corrections officers and workers. “It suits in, for my part, with the bigger targets that the governor and many people have pursued.”
The state’s jail union agrees with Connolly and Jenkins.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. normally has supported Newsom’s emphasis on rehabilitation for prisoners, and it has begun lobbying in public in opposition to additional jail closures.
The 24,500-member union is a participant within the Capitol, the place it has given $7 million to state lawmakers since 2015, in keeping with the CalMatters Digital Democracy database. It additionally kicked in $1.75 million to assist Newsom defeat the 2021 recall marketing campaign in opposition to him, and one other $1 million to again Newsom’s 2024 psychological well being poll measure.
“The specter of violence and rigidity in shared cells… fosters conflicts amongst cellmates, necessitating intervention from correctional officers, who place themselves in jeopardy, thereby escalating the general danger throughout the facility for all events concerned,” the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. stated in a help letter to Connolly.
Warren recalled a 2021 state of affairs of cellmate violence that he can’t overlook.
“A younger man beat an older gentleman to dying in a cell perhaps 4 or 5 cells down from me,” he stated. “It was loopy. After every part was all stated and executed, there have been so many conversations about how these two individuals shouldn’t be collectively — about how one individual was having a problem with the opposite individual, however (officers) not giving it full regard of the psychological well being points.”
A brand new period of decarceration
Previous prisons, akin to San Quentin and Folsom, had been initially designed to accommodate one individual per cell. In response to mass incarceration and overcrowding within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, the corrections division threw beds into areas by no means supposed for housing. They’d individuals sleeping in gyms, hallways, and even stairwells.
They usually welded and bolted additional bunk beds into virtually each single-person cell.
Many years of jail rights litigation finally pressured the system to handle the difficulty of housing individuals at 200% design capability. Two class-action lawsuits, Coleman vs. Newsom and Plata vs. Newsom, led to federal oversight and a mandated lower to 137% capability.
Present housing charges stand at about 120% design capability, averaged throughout all 31 state prisons.
Newsom faces some strain to shut extra of them. His administration estimates that shutting down one jail saves about $150 million a year, and it’s the one dependable approach to really carry down corrections spending. He has closed 4 prisons to this point — with yet another shutdown within the works.
Some advocacy teams and incarcerated people opposed Connoly and Jenkins’ invoice to offer extra single-cell housing. Referred to as jail abolitionists, these teams need to see as many prisons shut as potential. They consider offering extra single-cell models might intrude with that agenda.
Kenthi Porter, an incarcerated resident of Ironwood State Jail, submitted a letter to the Legislature by way of the abolitionist group Provoke Justice that stated single-cell insurance policies “could reinforce the infrastructure of mass incarceration… by using present extra mattress area and offering a pretext for halting future jail closure or increasing present jail infrastructure.”
Connolly emphasised that the invoice doesn’t try to legislate on any jail closure selections.
“The purpose right here is to not in any other case hold prisons open which might be slated to be closed or to reopen closed prisons,” he stated. “I totally perceive the purpose of lowering incarceration that’s aligned with the governor’s purpose of closing sure prisons. This isn’t what that’s about.”
Jenkins stated that closing prisons to accommodate lowering jail populations amid fiscal funds issues is probably not one of the best answer.
“Closing prisons is symbolic,” she stated. “I don’t assume that it represents a real take care of the people who find themselves at present incarcerated. I feel now we have to consider the situations that they’re in and never symbolic gestures.”
Incentivizing good habits
One huge roadblock that may derail parole and reentry alternatives is the frequent jail apply of holding each cellmates accountable for the actions of 1. When officers discover contraband like narcotics, weapons or cellphones in a cell, they generally subject a disciplinary guidelines violation report that holds each occupants chargeable for the infraction.
“A write-up could possibly be given to you primarily based on the truth that your cellmate was concerned in sure actions,” stated Warren. “You need to collectively pay for what this individual did as a result of, in right here, you’re responsible till confirmed harmless — and more often than not, they normally discover us responsible.”
Disciplinary infractions stay a part of an incarcerated particular person’s everlasting document and have an effect on their possibilities of parole or resentencing. A mistake or exoneration could get documented, however these stories by no means utterly go away.
Jenkins requested San Quentin administration to offer knowledge on the quantity of write-ups that occurred inside Donner, its single-cell “earned residing” unit for residents who show disciplinary-free conduct.
“San Quentin had over 3,000 write-ups final yr, and out of these 3,000, I consider it was seven that got here out of Donner,” stated Jenkins. “What you see is that it’s working. It’s efficient in that it permits the correctional officers who work in that unit to really be capable to have much less stress themselves as a result of they know that these inmates are incentivized to behave.”
Erick Maciel resides in Donner and has been there since its inception as an earned residing unit in 2023. He stated it’s the primary and solely time he’s had a cell to himself in additional than eight years of incarceration.
“Donner seems like I’m on parole,” stated Maciel. “It’s the closest factor to virtually feeling free in jail as a result of we’re not feeling strain from correctional officers or something like that. It’s tremendous vital, as a result of now I’m in a position to simply focus on myself.”
Staying in Donner requires remaining disciplinary-free, so Maciel and others within the unit act accordingly.
“I’m afraid of the results,” he stated about probably getting a write-up and dropping his single-cell privileges. “I’m very aware that I’m following the foundations on a regular basis — as a result of I respect the place I’m at.”
Joe Garcia writes for CalMatters.
