Norco prison will stay open for ‘several years'
January 08, 2016
/ STAFF WRITER
The Norco prison will remain open for several years so the state can stay below a cap on its inmate population, an official announced Thursday, Jan. 7.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2016-17 budget proposal temporarily extends operations for the California Rehabilitation Center, which had been earmarked for closure by the end of this year.
In addition to the announcement, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Scott Kernan said there would be a 1.4 percent budget increase next fiscal year for state prisons.
Still, days for the prison that opened in 1962 still appear numbered.
“Closure ... remains a priority,” Kernan said in a conference call, adding that corrections officials “do not believe we can close that prison at this time. We will continue to operate that facility for … the next several years.”
A proposed $6 million will be spent next fiscal year to remedy the prison’s poor drinking water, damaged bathrooms, and faulty electrical work – projects that have been neglected for years, corrections spokesman Bill Sessa said.
The money doesn’t signal a long-term revitalization effort, he added.
Cynthia Tampkins, warden of the Norco prison, could not be reached Thursday.
UNCERTAINTY CONTINUES
It’s not the first time the prison – housed in the former luxury hotel the Norconian – has been on the chopping block.
In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown called for the Norco prison to be shut by 2016. The state commissioned three new dorms at prisons across California, worth a combined $810 million, to replace it.
But in 2013, a Senate bill halted its closure, mainly due to concerns about meeting the Supreme Court-ordered prison populations cap. That decision was reaffirmed Thursday.
The Norco prison came under fire in May, when Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland, chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee and Budget Subcommittee on Corrections, called for its closure. She called it a “dilapidated” penitentiary in after learning of rodent and cockroach infestations there.
The population cap requires prisons not to exceed 137.5 percent of the facilities’ design capacities. Even with the new housing facilities, expected to open this spring, a 2014-15 state report indicates the corrections department is on track to exceed the cap as early as 2018.
Norco City Councilman Greg Newton said Thursday that he could argue both sides of the debate over the prison’s future. In his opinion, the prison is an economic driver for nearby gas stations and restaurants, bringing in much-needed sales tax revenue.
“The other side is, if the prison did go away, that could create even possibly a larger economic boom for the city as far as land use options, either commercial, residential, or mixed use,” Newton said. “It could all play in together, possibly freeing up investors for the Norconian hotel, then you’d have the surrounding land use whatever that may be. Those are all economic possibilities.”
Norco Mayor Kevin Bash said the city has a great relationship with the prison, and commended its community support.
CROWDED PRISONS
In October 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared the prison system was in a state of emergency.
He said all 33 prisons (there are now 35) were at or above maximum operational capacity, and the majority of prisons were so crowded that more than 15,000 inmates were kept in “conditions that pose substantial safety risks.”
The Supreme Court ordered California to reduce inmate populations so it could offer adequate space for mental health care and rehabilitation programs such as skills building, Sessa said.
The Norco prison housed 4,600 inmates in 2011. Today, about 2,400 men are serving sentences there, records show.
Inmate populations at other state prisons have dwindled too, in part because more inmates were sent to contract facilities out of state. But, as those inmates return to California prisons, the need for more beds and health care access has increased.
Even when inmate populations drop, state law requires prisons to keep the same number of workers. State Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, whose district includes the Norco prison, called for a plan to provide for the roughly 1,200 prison employees if the facility were to close.
“This is critical in ensuring that any potential adverse impact ... is minimized,” Roth wrote in an email Thursday.
As for Hancock, after visiting the facility in summer, she was “pleasantly surprised.”
Hancock wanted to hear alternatives to the Norco prison’s closure, and asked why part of the $810 million earmarked for new dorms across the state wasn’t spent on restoring it.