Prison closing amid declining inmates

SACRAMENTO >> California next year will close a prison holding about 1,500 male inmates, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said Friday in its latest step to reduce the state’s incarceration footprint partly in response to the coronavirus and massive related budget cuts.

Shuttering the 67-yearold Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, in the Central Valley east of San Francisco, will save about $182 million annually, state corrections officials said.

Newsom had called for closing a prison even before the pandemic devastated the state’s budget, once calling it a “core value” of his administration. He expects to close a second prison in coming years, although lawmakers want to advance that timetable.

A series of new laws and ballot measures over nearly a decade significantly shrunk what once was the nation’s largest state prison population. Newsom also approved the earlier releases of more than 10,000 inmates in response to the pandemic. He opposes a measure on the November ballot that could roll back some of the criminal justice changes and keep more inmates in prison longer.

The location has prompted lobbying and speculation, with some lawmakers pushing to close San Quentin State Prison, the state’s oldest prison that sits on highvalue shore-front property north of San Francisco, or the antiquated California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, east of Los Angeles.

Prison officials said the Tracy prison’s relatively low number of inmates helped prompt that choice, while its nearly 1,100 employees may be able to transfer to other prisons in Stockton or the Sacramento area.