Volume 56, Number 1 - Winter 2010

 

By Assemblymember Jared Huffman

Because of “three strikes” and a raft of other “tough on crime” sentencing initiatives over the past two decades, California’s prison system is bursting at the seams. San Quentin, which was designed to house 3,302 inmates, is brimming with more than 5,200—almost 60% over capacity. Its death row, which was designed for 554 condemned prisoners, currently houses nearly 700. With a 70% statewide recidivism rate, slashed rehabilitation program funding, and a moratorium on the death penalty until the lethal injection process is approved by a federal judge, the population of San Quentin will only continue to grow until we make some serious policy changes and reprioritize how we, as a state, spend our limited resources. 

Gov. Schwarzenegger, as part of his plan to close the budget deficit, recently proposed selling San Quentin as surplus property. In terms of real-estate value, the property is a pot of gold: some estimates place its worth as high as $2 billion. Yet the debate about what to do with San Quentin has raged for years because the solution is not as simple as just selling the property. Alternate housing would have to be provided for the current inmates, and a new death row would need to be designated. And all of this would have to occur within the constraints of a statewide prison overcrowding crisis. 

Illustrating the conflict between cashing in on the property and addressing the overcrowding crisis, the governor has for the past several months simultaneously advocated selling San Quentin and building a new $400 million death row on the existing site.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has been pushing for a new death row since 2002. Initially, CDCR asked the Legislature for $220 million to build the facility on the western 40 acres of San Quentin’s 432-acre property. The project was plagued by cost overruns from the outset. Within a few years, CDCR came back to the Legislature asking for another $136 million, even as the department downsized the project 25% to limit its hemorrhaging budget. Officially known as the Condemned Inmate Complex, the proposed facility was soon nicknamed Cadillac Death Row.

Complaints about the Cadillac Death Row have flooded in from residents and community leaders in Marin County, and from fiscal watchdogs and death penalty opponents throughout the state. Some locals vehemently oppose CDCR’s plan to make room for the complex by removing Dairy Hill, which sits just east of I-580 and acts as a buffer to the view of the prison. Others, including the Marin County Board of Supervisors, have opposed the project because it forecloses any opportunity to use some or all of the San Quentin property for something more useful and economically beneficial. 

The Cadillac Death Row is symbolic, and perhaps symptomatic, of California’s irrational budgeting process and failure to prioritize. In 2007, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office studied the project and recommended canceling it and using the funding to build additional prison capacity elsewhere at a lower cost per bed. In 2008, the State Auditor studied the project and concluded it would cost taxpayers more than $1.6 billion to build and operate over the next 20 years. The Auditor also revealed that CDCR was assuming it could double-bunk many of the condemned inmates to save space. California has never allowed such double-bunking, and many experts predict the courts would ultimately disallow it. In that event, the Auditor concluded the complex would hit capacity just three years after its opening. Yet CDCR, even in the face of record deficits and the worst fiscal collapse since the Great Depression, is still rushing to break ground on the Cadillac Death Row. 

Instead of building the Cadillac Death Row, the state should be exploring alternatives, including alternative housing strategies for condemned inmates, and alternative criminal justice policies that reduce recidivism and costs while keeping us safer. This effort should include reconsideration of the death penalty itself, which could be replaced with permanent imprisonment and save taxpayers more than $120 million a year—money better spent on projects that reduce crime, such as reentry programs, drug and alcohol treatment, mental health services, and hiring more police officers.

With respect to the 40 acres of San Quentin where CDCR would like to build the Cadillac Death Row, an alternative that has gained support from my colleagues in the Legislature, the County of Marin, and business leaders such as the Bay Area Council, is to transform the property into a modern mixed-use transit village right next to the current prison. The village would include workforce housing, shopping, restaurants, and a multi-modal transit hub with a world-class ferry terminal. The site is ideal for ferry service, having been identified by water transit experts as the best spot for a deep-water ferry terminal anywhere on San Francisco Bay. 

Relocating the existing Larkspur ferry terminal to this site would save approximately $5 million in dredging costs every three years, reduce impacts on the Corte Madera Creek estuary and nearby wetlands, and significantly reduce both travel times and greenhouse gas emissions for ferries. Moreover, this site would provide a seamless connection between the new Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) passenger rail service and the ferry. Finally, a transit village at this location could also include office space for the myriad nonprofit organizations and volunteers that provide educational and rehabilitative services to San Quentin inmates.

Is it possible to locate housing and non-correctional development right next to a prison? The answer lies on the eastern side of San Quentin, where the housing community of San Quentin Village has co-existed with the prison for decades. 

The future of San Quentin is largely in the hands of the governor. Depending on how he resolves his schizophrenia on the issue, we could either see an effort in the next year to surplus the entire San Quentin property, or a termination of shared-use possibilities if CDCR breaks ground on the Cadillac Death Row project. Either way, the debate about long-term solutions to prison overcrowding and condemned inmate housing, and indeed the death penalty itself, is entering a critical phase. 

My hope is that California will finally become both tough and smart on crime. If fiscal prudence and common sense prevail, we can emerge with policies that keep us safer, save billions of dollars in the years ahead, and make possible an exciting, multi-benefit project on a remarkable piece of property that deserves a higher and better use than warehousing condemned inmates.

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