An update on the proposed closure of prison in rural California

Hailey Branson-Potts brought us an update this weekend in the Los Angeles Times on the fate of a prison in Susanville, California, population 16,278, which was slated for closure more than a year ago.  The town of Susanville responded by suing to keep the prison open, arguing that they'd face economic devastation if they lose some 1000 prison jobs.  A Lassen County judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the closure.  Here's an excerpt from Saturday's LA Times story: 

As the outside world debates the future of the prison, the men incarcerated there say their voices must be heard.

This summer, prisoners tried to file an amicus brief in support of the closure, detailing problems in the facility.

An amicus brief filed last year by Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents prison employees, argues that if the facility were to close, workers “risk losing their livelihoods and will be forced to upend their lives and families, decimating their community in the process.”

The lawsuit — with a mostly white town arguing that its survival depends on the incarceration of mostly Black and Latino men — has “this kind of gross, unseemly character,” said Shakeer Rahman, a Los Angeles-based attorney who represented inmates who signed the amicus brief.

“The court is deciding whether a form of bondage, a form of cruelty, is going to continue based on the personal financial benefits of the people around the prison,” Rahman said. “At every single turn, the judge and the city have silenced the voices of our clients in order to keep marching on in this decision making that treats them as a source of revenue.”

The inmates are not challenging their convictions, Rahman noted; they simply want to report dangerous conditions that justify the prison’s closure.

The case in rural Lassen County could foreshadow conflicts to come as California’s inmate population declines and other prisons are considered for closure.

Earlier posts about the proposed closure are here and here, and embedded in them are links to  earlier posts about Susanville, like the ones here and here.   Here's one about the threat of last summer's Dixie fire to the Susanville prisons.