California is closing state prisons because it no longer has enough incarcerated people to fill them and can no longer afford to keep half-empty, aging facilities running. The state’s prison population has fallen from nearly 160,000 around 2010 to roughly 92,600 by mid-2024, while the average cost to hold one person has climbed to $127,800 a year.1California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Spring 2025 Population Projections2Legislative Analyst’s Office. How Much Does It Cost to Incarcerate a Person Five prisons have shut down since 2021, a sixth closure is scheduled for 2026, and San Quentin is being rebuilt as a rehabilitation campus.
A Shrinking Prison Population
The decline started under court order. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Plata that overcrowding in California prisons — then running at about 200% of design capacity — violated the Eighth Amendment, and the Court ordered the state to bring the population down to 137.5% of capacity.3Legal Information Institute. Brown v. Plata Hitting that number required structural changes to who went to state prison in the first place.
Two reforms did most of the work. The Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, known as AB 109, shifted responsibility for non-violent, non-serious offenders from the state system to county jails and probation departments. People who would have served state time instead served it locally, and parole violators who used to cycle back into prison began reporting to county probation officers.4County of Los Angeles Probation Department. AB 109 Three years later, voters passed Proposition 47, which reclassified simple drug possession and property crimes involving $950 or less from felonies to misdemeanors.5Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 47
Together, these changes and other sentencing reforms cut the state prison population by roughly a third over a decade. By mid-2024, close to 15,000 beds sat empty across the system.1California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Spring 2025 Population Projections
The Cost of Keeping Half-Empty Prisons Open
Empty beds don’t produce savings on their own. A prison still needs guards, medical staff, administrators, and working utilities whether it holds 2,000 people or 1,200. The average annual cost to incarcerate one person in California now sits at $127,800, up roughly 161% since 2010–11, driven mostly by employee compensation and court-mandated health care improvements. Security staffing alone runs more than $52,000 per incarcerated person per year.2Legislative Analyst’s Office. How Much Does It Cost to Incarcerate a Person
Shutting down an entire facility is what actually frees up money. The Newsom administration estimates each full prison closure saves about $150 million a year in General Fund spending.6Legislative Analyst’s Office. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Budget With the state facing ongoing deficits, closures have become one of the few politically workable ways to cut costs without eliminating services voters notice.
$11 Billion in Deferred Repairs
Even without the population drop, the condition of the buildings would have forced closures. San Quentin opened in 1852. Folsom opened in 1880. Several other prisons date to the 1940s and 1950s. A consultant study funded by the 2016–17 state budget reviewed the 12 oldest facilities and recommended more than 150 infrastructure projects totaling roughly $11 billion.7Legislative Analyst’s Office. The 2020-21 Budget: Effectively Managing State Prison Infrastructure
San Quentin alone would need an estimated $1.6 billion in repairs. The problems involve deteriorating plumbing, failing electrical systems, structural issues, and asbestos in older pipe insulation and building materials.7Legislative Analyst’s Office. The 2020-21 Budget: Effectively Managing State Prison Infrastructure When the cost of fixing a facility rivals the cost of operating it, closure becomes the cheaper choice.
Which Prisons Have Closed
The major full-prison closures since 2020:
- Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, closed September 2021
- California Correctional Center in Susanville, closed June 2023
- California City Correctional Facility, closed March 2024
- Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe, closed October 2024
CDCR has also deactivated individual housing units at the California Rehabilitation Center, the California Institution for Men, and Pelican Bay State Prison.8California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Reduction/Closure Information The California Rehabilitation Center in Riverside County is scheduled to close entirely by fall 2026.9California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. California Rehabilitation Center to Close by Fall 2026
San Quentin Is Being Rebuilt, Not Closed
Not every aging prison is being emptied. In 2023, Governor Newsom announced plans to convert San Quentin into a rehabilitation campus. Renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, the facility now includes an 81,000-square-foot Learning Center that nearly triples the available programming and classroom space. The 18-month project cost $239 million and finished on schedule.10Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. Governor Newsom Transforms San Quentin, Opens Nation-Leading Learning Center
The conversion also repurposes East Block, formerly death row, into rehabilitative housing and expands recreation and reentry programming.10Office of Governor Gavin Newsom. Governor Newsom Transforms San Quentin, Opens Nation-Leading Learning Center San Quentin still holds incarcerated people; the facility’s purpose, not its existence, is what’s changing.
Will Proposition 36 Reverse the Trend?
In November 2024, California voters passed Proposition 36, which rolled back parts of Proposition 47. Shoplifting is now a felony for people with two or more prior theft convictions, selling drugs like fentanyl or heroin carries mandatory prison time, and a new “treatment-mandated felony” category gives repeat drug possession offenders a choice between completing treatment and facing up to three years in state prison.11Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 36
The Newsom administration estimates Proposition 36 will add about 3,300 people to the average daily prison population in 2025–26.12Legislative Analyst’s Office. Overview of Proposition 36 Fiscal Impacts That’s a fraction of the roughly 15,000 empty beds currently in the system. The measure changes the political conversation around sentencing, but it doesn’t change the underlying math driving closures.
What Closures Mean for Prison Towns
One cost doesn’t show up in the state budget: the economic hit to small communities built around a prison. Many of California’s facilities were sited in rural areas decades ago as a form of local economic development, bringing hundreds of stable government jobs to places with few other large employers. When a prison closes, guards, counselors, and medical staff either relocate or lose their jobs, and the restaurants, gas stations, and landlords who served them lose customers.
The shutdown of the California Correctional Center in Susanville is the most cited example. The facility was one of the largest employers in Lassen County, and its closure forced the town to confront the loss of jobs that had sustained it for decades. California has not established a comprehensive program to help communities absorb the impact, which remains one of the more politically difficult pieces of the ongoing consolidation.