Federal prisons in California
Incarceration in California spans federal, state, county, and city governance, with approximately 200,000 people in confinement at any given time. An additional 55,000 people are on parole.
The main government agencies and incarceration facilities involved in each jurisdiction are:
Most people incarcerated in county and city jails are in pre-trial detention and have therefore not been convicted of a crime.
Federal incarceration facilities
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) operates a variety of facilities in California, including United States Penitentiaries (USPs), Federal Correctional Institutions (FCIs), and Private Correctional Institutions (PCIs). One BOP facility, Taft Correctional Institution, is operated by Management and Training Corporation (MCT), a private company.
As of April 2020, 13,315 people were under custody in BOP facilities in California. An additional 422 people were under BOP custody in privately run facilities in California, and an unspecified number of people were under BOP custody in community-based facilities in California. Roughly 8% of the people in BOP custody are in California.[1]
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts with various private companies to detain people in California. The largest ICE detention facilities in California are:
Per a Congressional mandate that first appeared in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2010, ICE must maintain at least 34,000 detention beds in total across the country. ICE detention facilities in California contribute 3,515 mandatory beds to that mandate. As of August 22, 2020, ICE facilities in California had an average daily population of 3,118.[2]
State incarceration facilities
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) operates 35 prisons in California, with a design capacity of 85,083 incarcerated people. CDCR both owns and operates 34 of the state prisons; it additionally operates California City Correctional Facility, a prison leased from CoreCivic.
The state's prison medical care system has been in receivership since 2006, when a federal court ruled in Plata v. Brown that the state failed to provide a constitutional level of medical care to its prisoners. Since 2009, the state has been under court order to reduce prison overcrowding to no higher than 137.5% of total design capacity.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) runs 44 conservation camps (also known as fire camps) jointly with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The conservation camp program mission is to "support state, local and federal government agencies as they respond to emergencies such as fires, floods, and other natural or manmade disasters." Over 3,000 incarcerated people work at the conservation camps each year, including men, women, and juveniles. They receive the same entry-level training as CAL FIRE's seasonal firefighters.[3]
CAL FIRE reported 3,500 incarcerated firefighters in its 2018-2019 staffing numbers, making incarcerated firefighters approximately 27% of the total firefighting capacity of the state.[4]
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) (formerly known as the California Youth Authority (CYA)) manages youth incarceration. DJJ incarcerates youths from ages 12 – 25; youths tried as adult and committed to the Division of Adult Institutions may be transferred to an adult prison once they turn 18.[5]
DJJ owns and operates 3 prisons and 1 youth fire camp, with a total design capacity of roughly 750 incarcerated people. Those facilities are:
In addition to running prisons and camps, CDCR runs or contracts with private companies to run a variety of smaller-scale community incarceration facilities:
County incarceration facilities
The California Board of State and Community Corrections tracks 116 county jails across California's 58 counties, with a total design capacity of 78,243 incarcerated people.
California's county jails function like county jails throughout the United States: they are used to incarcerated people pre-trial, through a trial and sentencing, and for some sentences of commitment. The majority of people incarcerated in California's county jails have not been sentenced (they are pre-trial and have not been convicted of a crime). Most county jails are run by the county sheriff; occasionally they are run by a county-level department of corrections.
Historically, time would be served in a county jail for sentences of less than a year, including sentences for misdemeanors and some felonies. In 2011, California's Public Safety Realignment Act was signed into law in response to the Supreme Court case Brown v. Plata and the resulting court order to address prison overcrowding in the state. Realignment "shifted responsibility for all sentenced non-violent, non-serious, non-sex offenders from state to local jurisdictions",[11] which decreased California prison populations, increased California county jail populations, and changed the types and distribution of crimes for which people were serving sentences in county jails.
Some cities run their own jails for incarcerating people in pre-trial detention, typically overseen by the city police department. Many city jails additionally have a "pay to stay" program as an alternative to incarceration in a county jail.[12]
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