By Nicole Nixon
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif — Five years after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans for California to shutter some of its prisons, the state’s prison budget is reflecting savings.
Newsom announced plans to close two prisons in 2020, citing a declining inmate population, with an intention to close two more later. But for several years state spending followed a decade-long trend of increase while the number of people incarcerated in the system has dwindled.
Now, under the budget Newsom signed last month, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will receive $13.6 billion this year, close to 10% less than its peak of $14.9 billion in 2023.
The state’s prison population has steadily declined since 2011, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that severe overcrowding in California prisons amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
In response to that ruling, the state reformed sentencing laws and increased good time credits. Lower-level offenders were transferred to county jails and thousands were released early during the COVID-19 pandemic to further mitigate crowding.
But for more than a decade, state spending on prisons rose as the incarcerated population dropped. Even after Newsom shuttered his first of four prisons in 2021, CDCR’s budget grew.
It cost just over $133,000 to incarcerate a person for one year in California prisons last year, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
CDCR spending dipped in 2020 as state leaders anticipated a major budget deficit. Labor unions representing correctional officers agreed to a 4.6% temporary pay cut in exchange for 12 hours of leave each month, and deferred a scheduled 3% raise. But those cuts only lasted a year as California’s tax revenues rebounded.
Have prison closures saved money?
Newsom now has shuttered four prisons and announced the state will close one more next year, though his administration has not determined which one.
He also signed legislation that ended the Division of Juvenile Justice in 2023. Since then, youth have been placed in county custody and the state closed its DJJ facilities and camps.
According to the Department of Finance, these closures save about $966 million annually. Another prison closure would save an additional $150 million.
While the savings from prison closures are reflected in CDCR’s lower budget, lawmakers and advocates for reduced prison spending believe the agency can find more savings.
Last year, the LAO said the state has enough vacant beds to close up to five prisons in addition to the four already shuttered, which would save another $1 billion each year. Newsom called for just one more closure by October 2026.
And while the state saves money with the four prison closures – including at one privately owned prison that will be turned into an immigrant detention center – it still owns most of the facilities and spends millions each year maintaining them.
Californians United for a Responsible Budget, a coalition of more than 100 groups that advocate for reduced prison spending and incarceration, estimates the state has spent $300 million maintaining these prisons in “warm shutdown.”
“CDCR and the corrections budget in general has been a black hole, a money pit,” said Brian Kaneda, CURB’s deputy director. “No matter how much savings we’re getting from prison closures, they won’t be effective in supporting our community unless they’re reinvested back where they need it most.”
CDCR maintains a total of 12 facilities in warm shutdown, including several former youth facilities that were deactivated over a decade ago.
“Taking into consideration their large size, remoteness, and self-contained infrastructure, CDCR properties are expensive to maintain once closed,” the agency wrote in a report earlier this year.
CDCR spokesperson Emily Humpal said the decommissioned sites have “minimal staff” monitoring them “to ensure that closed facilities do not fall into a state of disrepair.” Humpal added the state cut $5 million for ongoing maintenance of deactivated facilities last year.
The state could transfer or sell the properties after they are declared excess by CDCR or the state Legislature. But in a January report the agency outlined challenges to offloading vacant prisons including “zoning issues, reuse limitations, and substantial liabilities related to abatement and demolition costs. As a result, excess CDCR facilities can sit vacant, despite legislative authorization to sell them, for several years.”
Why prison spending kept rising
Despite the steady decline in the incarcerated population, CDCR’s budget grew by roughly 45% between 2015 and 2023.
Caitlin O’Neil, a policy analyst for the LAO, attributed the growth largely to staffing costs and compliance with the 2011 U.S. Supreme Court order.
“Despite the fact that the population declined substantially during that period, the state still had to add capacity,” she said. The state “couldn’t pack people into prisons as much as we were previously doing. We had to actually build and activate new capacity and contract out.”
In the years after the ruling, the state built and contracted new facilities to house more than 9,700 beds. It also increased spending on inmate health care and employee wages and benefits.
Staffing costs alone make up roughly two-thirds of CDCR’s budget, which means even small raises have a big impact.
“One prison closure could offset one typical year of employee compensation growth,” O’Neil said.
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