Why California prisons suddenly have room for single-person cells – CalMatters

from Joe GarciaCalMatters

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If you’re serving a sentence in a California prison, you’ll often find yourself stuck in a cramped cell with a complete stranger. You hang a sheet to create a semblance of privacy between the bed and the toilet. Any little thing can explode into a source of tension and anxiety – body odor, snoring, lights on or off.

Every moment becomes a test to avoid confrontation or quarrel. Without immediate help from staff, fear and anxiety simmer within you. And day by day your mental health deteriorates.

“You don’t necessarily know what that person’s capacity is or what their crime is,” said Steven Warren, a current resident at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. “They don’t tell you any of that when they put you in a cell with them.

“I don’t know if this person has the inclination to kill me in my sleep or commit an act of violence against me just because he feels a certain way.”

Some politicians in California and prison officials I believe it is time to rethink these potentially harmful housing situations. They argue that offering more single-occupancy cells may serve the best interests of prison residents and public safety.

This is possible because of California’s incarcerated population continues to decrease — from a peak of over 173,000 people in 2006 to just under 90,000 today. A handful of the prisons are closedwhile changes to eligibility for prosecution and parole helped free thousands of people.

With the former manager Jerry Brown and now Gov. Gavin Newsomrehabilitation and re-entry options also remain a growing focal point. The San Quentin Rehabilitation Center is at the forefront of the discussion, with a “worked life” housing unit consisting exclusively of single-person cells and plans to similarly divert released Death Row buildings. A prison spokesman said it was “working towards” making single-person cells available to all inmates by spring 2026.

A bill introduced in the California Legislature this year aims to establishment of unicellular units in more prisons. The measure did not reach Newsom, but is expected to return in 2026.

“We want people to have the opportunity to move back into our community, and we want them to do so in the healthiest way possible,” said San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who helped draft the legislation.

“You can’t do that if you’re in an environment that’s causing chaos and stress — or you can’t sleep, you’re confrontational, you’re irritable because you’re sleeping with one eye open.”

Conversations drive change

Jenkins visited San Quentin many times over the past two years and spoke with Warren and others. More importantly, she listened.

“One of the conversations we had inside with a number of the inmates was the cellmate about cellmate abuse and all the issues that come with sharing a cell,” Jenkins said.

She turned to the MP Damon Connellythe Democrat representing San Rafael. Together, they authored the Assembly bill that proposes the creation of single cell pilot programs in four California prisons.

“To be able to properly participate in rehabilitation programming,” the bill’s text states. “Inmates should be able to sleep without fear of physical harm.”

Connolly said single-cell housing units further promote a safer work environment for prison officers and staff. “I think it fits into the larger goals that the governor and many of us have been pursuing.”

The state prison union agrees with Connolly and Jenkins.

The California Correctional Officers Association generally supported Newsom’s emphasis on prisoner rehabilitation and began lobbying publicly against additional prison closures.

The 24,500-member union is a player at the Capitol, where it has given $7 million to state lawmakers since 2015, according to CalMatters Digital Democracy Database. He also gave $1.75 million to help Newsom defeat a recall campaign against him in 2021 and another $1 million to support Newsom’s mental health measure in 2024.

“The threat of violence and tension in shared cells … fosters conflicts between inmates, necessitating the intervention of correctional officers who put themselves in harm’s way, thus escalating the overall risk in the facility for all parties involved,” the California Correctional Officers Peace Association said in a letter of support to Connolly.

Warren recalled a The situation in 2021 cellmate-on-cellmate abuse that he can never forget.

“A young man beat an older gentleman to death in a cell maybe four or five cells down from me,” he said. “It was crazy. After it was all said and done, there was so much talk about how these two people shouldn’t be together — about how one person has a problem with the other person, but (police officers) don’t pay full attention to mental health issues.”

A new era of decarceration

Old prisons, such as San Quentin and Folsom, were originally designed to house one person to a cell. In response to mass incarceration and overcrowding in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Department of Corrections threw beds into facilities that were never intended for housing. They had people sleeping in gyms, hallways and even stairwells.

And they welded and attached extra bunk beds to almost every single cell.

Decades of litigation over inmate rights eventually forced the system to address the problem of housing people at 200 percent design capacity. Two class actions, Coleman v. Newsom and Salary at Newsomled to federal oversight and a mandatory reduction to 137% capacity.

Current house prices are about 120% of design capacity, averaged over all 31 state prisons.

Newsom faces some pressure to shut down more of them. His administration estimates that closing one prison saves about $150 million a yearr, and this is the only reliable way to actually reduce the cost of corrections. It has closed four prisons so far – with one more in the works.

Some advocacy groups and incarcerated individuals opposed Connolly and Jenkins’ bill to provide more single-unit housing. Known as prison abolitionists, these groups want to see as many prisons closed as possible. They believe that providing more single-cell units could hinder this agenda.

Kenty Porter, an incarcerated inmate at Ironwood State Penitentiary, sent a letter to the Legislature through the Justice Abolition Group that said solitary confinement policies “can strengthen the infrastructure of mass incarceration … by using current excess bed space and providing a pretext to stop future prison closings or expansion of existing prison infrastructure.”

Connolly emphasized that the bill does not attempt to legislate decisions to close prisons.

“The goal here is not to either keep prisons open that are scheduled to be closed or to reopen closed prisons,” he said. “I completely understand the goal of reducing incarceration, which is consistent with the governor’s goal of closing certain prisons. That’s not what this is about.”

Jenkins said closing prisons to accommodate declining prison populations amid fiscal budget considerations may not be the best solution.

“Closing the prisons is symbolic,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a real concern for the people who are currently incarcerated. I think we need to think about the conditions they’re in, not symbolic gestures.”

Encouraging good behavior

One major obstacle that can derail parole and reentry opportunities is the common practice in prisons of holding both inmates responsible for the actions of the other. When officers find contraband such as drugs, weapons or cell phones in a cage, they typically issue a disciplinary violation report that holds both occupants accountable for the violation.

“You could be given a note based on the fact that your roommate was involved in certain activities,” Warren said. “You have to collectively pay for what this guy did, because here you’re guilty until proven innocent — and most of the time, they usually find us guilty.”

Disciplinary violations remain on an inmate’s permanent record and affect his or her chances of parole or reconviction. An error or release may be documented, but these reports never completely disappear.

Jenkins asked the San Quentin administration to provide data on the number of discharges carried out within Donner, its single-cell “life support” unit for residents who demonstrate unruly behavior.

“San Quentin had over 3,000 comments last year, and of those 3,000 I believe seven were from Donner,” Jenkins said. “What you’re seeing is that it’s working. It’s effective because it allows the correctional officers who work in that unit to actually be able to have less stress because they know that these inmates are incentivized to behave.”

Eric Maciel currently lives in Donner and has been there since its inception as a housing unit in 2023. He said it was the first and only time he had a cell to himself in more than eight years in prison.

“Donner, I feel like I’m on parole,” Maciel said. “It’s the closest thing to almost feeling free in prison because we don’t feel pressure from the correctional officers or anything like that. It’s super important because now I can just focus on myself.”

Staying at Donner requires remaining free of disciplinary action, so Maciel and others in the department act accordingly.

“I’m afraid of the consequences,” he said of possibly getting a citation and losing his single-cell privileges. “I’m very careful that I follow the rules all the time – because I appreciate where I’m at.”

Joe Garcia is a contributor to California Local News.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.