"Prisontown USA" (an actual place in rural California) in a panic after 2022 prison closure announced

The State of California recently announced that it would close the California Correctional Center in Susanville, population 17,974, in far northern California, in 2022.  According to a story by Jeong Park in the Sacramento Bee, this closure, along with that of another prison in Tracy (in the state's Central Valley), fulfills a campaign promise by Governor Gavin Newsom to close correctional facilities in relation to the planned reduction in prisoner population.  

Susanville is also home to a second prison, High Desert State Prison.  Both of Susanville's prisons were featured in the excellent 2007 documentary by Po Kutchens, "Prisontown, USA."  

But why did California choose to close the prison in remote Lassen County rather than, say, San Quentin, which sits on San Francisco Bay.  That's a question articulated by State Senator Brian Dahle (R), who is from the Lassen County town of Bieber and who represents a huge chunk of north eastern California, from Lake Tahoe to the Oregon state line.  He commented: 

The state would make a lot of money if it sells San Quentin. That seems to me like a better opportunity than to destroy our community up north. That’s a question that didn’t get answered. How was it prioritized?

Dahle's wife, Megan, is the recently elected California Assemblywoman for the district that includes Lassen County.  The Dahle's have been meeting with folks in that part of California, as reported in the Lassen County Times. Dahle commented:  

They totally took full responsibility for not being transparent and said they were sorry, and so that’s that.  They said, ‘we want to work with you.’ So, I would like to meet with Ana Monosano (the governor’s cabinet secretary) and Kathleen Allison (CDCR secretary) on Zoom on May 17. We’re going to have Richard (Egan, Lassen County administrative officer), and Dan (Newton, interim Susanville city administrator) for sure and both of the (union) reps from SEIU and CCPOA … We want to get some information on how they chose, what the criteria made that decision.

Egan commented, 

They’ve acknowledged the secretive process and said they’re sorry.

Brian Dahle continued, 

They didn’t say secretive, they just didn’t tell anybody.  ... 

Egan continued,  

… but even then they’ve acknowledged that as a shortcoming, they haven’t changed their behavior.  They’re still doing it. We’ve (Lassen County Board of Supervisors) asked for reconsideration. We’ve asked for an explanation, and we have not received a response — not even an acknowledgement of our request.

Megan Dahle said,

We put in Public Records Act requests a couple of weeks ago, as soon as we found out.

A final quote in the Lassen County paper is from Brian Dahle, 

We’re not going to give up on our community yet.  We want to negotiate. We’re want to go in there and say, "We’re about good governance. We think we do a good job up there (at CCC), and we want you to justify where you’re at." It’s really unfortunate how they treat their employees. You think when you go to work for the state, you’ve got a good job, you’ve got a union … not to mention what it’s going to do the community. We believe we can push back. We just learned CCC is one of the three prisons in the state that lives within its budget.

The Sacramento Bee story details some other ways the closure, which according to Megan Dahle implicates 10,000 jobs, will be devastating to the Susanville economy:   

Susanville could lose more than a quarter of its workforce — jobs that pay upwards of $90,000 in some cases. Some workers could find jobs next door at the High Desert State Prison, but many would have to move. The next closest state prison is more than three hours away in Folsom.

* * * 

Already, Susanville residents worry about the job loss cascading down to layoffs in schools and government, as well as businesses. Other rural towns whose economies depend on prisons are concerned as well, said Staci Heaton, acting vice president for government affairs with Rural County Representatives of California.

Other rural prisons at risk of closure include Sierra Conservation Center near Jamestown, one of the two biggest employers in Tuolumne County, and California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo County, which employs 1,800.  The Bee further reports:  

Taft in Kern County, which had its federal prison close last year, lost 18% of its population in 2020, the highest population loss in the state that year.

Interestingly, one of the themes of "Prisontown USA" was that Susanville and Lassen County saw relatively little economic benefit from the prisons because they contracted with non-local entities for supplies such as dairy products.  

The Bee story also covers the issue of whether these facilities can be converted for other uses--other enterprises that could employ some of the many correctional officers who will lose their jobs when the correctional facility closes.  Here's an interesting quote about  whether the prison can be repurposed and, if so, for what sorts of enterprises: 

The jobs created by the repurposing of prisons may also not pay as well as correctional jobs. Pay for junior cannabis growers, for instance, ranges from $30,000 to $70,000, according to a marijuana job site Hempstaff.

“You’re not going to get a correctional officer who just got laid off to go to work for a cannabis company,” said Amanda Autre, a Susanville resident who came to the Capitol last week to protest the closure. “You’re talking to very highly trained, skilled people that are out there, and their skills are very unique for what they can do."

And here's a story noting the need to help these communities transition economically when prisons close. 

Here is a related story out of Tehachapi, also a relatively rural community, this one in the Inland Empire. 

Other stories about the Susanville prisons are here and here.  An unrelated recent story out of Lassen County, this one about coronavirus testing, is here.  And another post about rural prisons in California is here.