(The Center Square) – California Governor Gavin Newsom announced San Quentin State Prison, the maximum-security home of California’s death row, would be converted into a rehabilitation center designed to operate like a college campus.
“California is transforming San Quentin – the state’s most notorious prison with a dark past – into the nation’s most innovative rehabilitation facility focused on building a brighter and safer future,” said Governor Newsom in a news release. “Today, we take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation.”
Initially announced in March of 2023 with a proposed $20 million to renovate the facility, this new program aims to “serve as a nationwide evidence-backed model to advance a more effective justice system that builds safer communities,” stated a news release from the governor’s office. This plan for a “one-of-a-kind facility focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation and education” was then subjected to a scathing analysis by the California Legislature’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), a government-funded, non-partisan information agency which recommended that legislators not approve funding for this project.
The LAO specifically focused on the fact that “no clear objectives or plans have been developed,” the “proposed project completion by 2025 is unnecessary and problematic,” and that “facility projects would be extremely costly to scale.” With regards to cost, the LAO noted that building the San Quentin facility alone would cost roughly $680 million after accounting for interest. The LAO estimated scaling the San Quentin program to the rest of the state prison system would cost an additional $20 billion over the next 25 years.
Despite the LAO’s concerns, funding for some of the program was approved in June, though the battle over the future of the program as a whole remains ongoing.
San Quentin is already home to Mount Tamalpais College, which offers associates’ degrees and is only available to San Quentin inmates. San Quentin also hosts one of the only prisoner-run newspapers in the country, a program its editor in chief Steve Brooks told NBC has a zero percent recidivism rate.
