California Prisons Closing: The Five Sites, Costs, and Court Order

Five prisons in California are closing or have already closed under Governor Gavin Newsom, and once the last one shuts its doors in fall 2026, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will run 30 prisons statewide instead of the 34 it operated when the process began in 2021.¹ The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office has already suggested a sixth closure could follow as early as 2027–28.²

The Five Facilities

Four state-owned prisons and one privately run facility make up the current round of closures:³

Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy closed in September 2021. It was the first, announced as part of the 2020–21 budget.
California Correctional Center in Susanville closed in June 2023.
California City Correctional Facility in Kern County ended operations in March 2024. This one was privately operated by CoreCivic under contract; the state terminated the lease.
Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe closed in fall 2024, ahead of its original 2025 target.
California Rehabilitation Center in Norco is scheduled to close by fall 2026. It’s the only closure still pending.

Why This Is Happening

Fewer People in State Prisons

The main reason is straightforward: California doesn’t need as many prison beds as it used to. In 2020, more than 110,000 people were incarcerated in the state system. By mid-2026, CDCR projects around 92,400 incarcerated individuals, dropping to roughly 89,700 by mid-2029.⁴

Three big reforms drove the decline. AB 109, passed in 2011, moved responsibility for lower-level offenders from state prisons to county supervision. Proposition 47, approved in 2014, reclassified certain drug and property offenses as misdemeanors. Proposition 57, in 2016, expanded parole eligibility for people convicted of nonviolent crimes and created new credit-earning opportunities.⁵

Proposition 36, which voters passed in November 2024, is expected to push some admissions back up. CDCR’s projections already account for it and still forecast a net decline through the end of the decade.⁴

Money

Empty beds still cost money. Staffing, upkeep, and utilities run whether a housing unit is full or half-full. Closing the California Rehabilitation Center alone is projected to save roughly $150 million per year in General Fund spending.¹ The 2026–27 CDCR budget proposal reflects a $258 million decrease from the prior year, largely because of the CRC closure and related operational changes.²

A Court Order That Started It All

The pressure to shrink California’s prison system didn’t start with Newsom. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an order in Brown v. Plata requiring the state to bring its prison population down to 137.5 percent of design capacity. At the time, prisons designed for just under 80,000 people held nearly twice that, and the ruling required a reduction of 38,000 to 46,000 incarcerated individuals.⁶ The sentencing and supervision reforms that followed are what eventually made closures possible. As of December 2025, the adult institutional population was at 122 percent of design capacity, comfortably under the court’s ceiling.⁷

How CDCR Picks Which Prison to Close

California Penal Code Section 2067 sets out six factors CDCR must weigh: how much the facility costs to operate, whether staff can be moved to other jobs, whether the prison houses populations with specialized needs, how much the state has already invested in it, whether closure would hurt public safety or rehabilitation programs, and whether closing it still leaves enough capacity to handle future population increases.⁸

In practice, closures have leaned toward older, expensive facilities and locations where transfers are logistically manageable. The Legislative Analyst’s Office has flagged the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad as a strong candidate for the next closure, in part because pouring more money into its infrastructure may be wasted if the prison shuts down within a few years.²

What It Means for People Inside

Every incarcerated person at a closing prison has to be transferred somewhere else. CDCR handles this case by case, matching each individual to a facility that fits their custody level, medical needs, and programming.⁹ The department says it tries to preserve family access and let people finish programs they’ve already started.

Transfers are still disruptive. Someone close to finishing a vocational certificate may land at a prison that doesn’t offer it. Families that live nearby can end up hundreds of miles from a loved one. Those costs don’t appear in the budget savings figures, but they come up every time a closure is announced.

What It Means for Staff and Prison Towns

CDCR offers transfers to employees at closing facilities, both within and outside the affected county, and the availability of other jobs is one of the statutory factors the department has to consider before picking a prison to close.³⁸ A transfer three hours away doesn’t help much, though, if you own a home and your kids are in local schools.

Rural towns feel it hardest. Susanville, which lost the California Correctional Center in 2023, sued to try to block the closure, arguing it would cause serious economic damage. State officials acknowledged some layoffs were unavoidable even with transfer offers. For communities that were sold on hosting a prison decades ago as an economic anchor, the closure lands hard, and replacement industries don’t appear on any predictable schedule.

What Comes Next

The Legislative Analyst’s Office has recommended the Legislature direct CDCR to plan a sixth closure in 2027–28 or as soon as it’s feasible. The LAO estimates the state could close another prison and still keep a roughly 2,500-bed buffer for unexpected population swings, with additional annual savings of around $150 million.²

Whether that happens on that timeline depends on how Proposition 36 admissions play out, whether the Legislature follows the LAO’s recommendation, and who’s governing California when the next set of decisions comes due.

1
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. California Rehabilitation Center to Close by Fall 2026
2
Legislative Analyst’s Office. The 2026-27 Budget – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
3
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Reduction/Closure Information – Prison Closures
4
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Spring 2025 Population Projections
5
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. About the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016
6
Justia. Brown v. Plata
7
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Three-Judge Court Monthly Update
8
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 2067
9
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Prison Closures – Frequently Asked Questions