SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his plan to transform San Quentin State Prison from a maximum-security prison into a rehabilitation and education facility within the prison system, lawmakers are pushing back saying his proposal lacks a detailed strategy behind it.
During budget committee meetings last week, lawmakers grew noticeably frustrated over the limited information provided by the Newsom administration and corrections officials regarding their plan to reimagine California’s oldest correctional facility.
“I try not to consider it insulting, but it’s close,” Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, said at a recent budget committee hearing. “I find it to be very disturbing that we’re following a pathway where we’re being asked to fund first and answers will come later.”
Meanwhile, the agency tasked with advising lawmakers on fiscal and policy matters is imploring the Legislature to reject the governor’s funding requests and demand accountability.
A newly released report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office blasted Newsom’s office for failing to set any clear objectives and for putting forward a $380 million funding proposal that lacks crucial information, such as the project’s full scope and projected operating costs.
The report called the governor’s plan to complete the transformation in less than three years “unnecessary and problematic.” It also found that the initiative could cost upwards of $20 billion to scale across California’s correctional system, as the governor expressed was his intent.
“While the administration has articulated some broad approaches to pursuing the goals of the California Model, such as ‘becoming a trauma-informed organization,’ it has not identified any clear changes to policy, practice, or prison environments it deems necessary to achieve the goals,” the LAO report reads.
Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, deferred questions to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
CDCR spokesperson Terri Hardy called the criticisms “premature” and said that a newly-appointed advisory council — led by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg — was “actively working to develop recommendations to transform the prison by the end of the year.”
Newsom announced in mid-March that the 171-year-old penitentiary, which houses about 3,900 inmates and was home to the nation’s largest death row, would overhaul its approach to rehabilitating inmates to emphasize services and support over punishment.
Dubbed the California Model, Newsom said the plan that incorporates methods used in Norway and other Scandinavian nations would launch by the end of 2025.
Since then, the Newsom administration has requested $20 million for operations and $360.6 million in revenue bond authority to construct a new educational and vocational center.
The bond money would be used to knock down an existing building, which had its roof replaced less than two years ago at a cost of nearly $5 million, to make room for the new center on the Marin County property.
After factoring in annual debt costs, the project’s price tag is likely to reach $680 million, according to the LAO.
San Quentin is already known as a prison that offers considerable programming, including education, arts and other rehabilitative services. Activists have questioned whether a new capital project at San Quentin is the best use of state dollars.
“There are a lot of other prisons that could use some help in this regard and they’re much worse off than San Quentin,” said Don Specter, executive director of the Prison Law Office.
Full details of the project will not be determined until after the 2023-24 budget is passed by the legislature in June.
That means the governor is asking lawmakers to approve funding for his plan without knowing how the money would be spent or whether it’s the best option for rehabilitating inmates and curbing recidivism rates on the scale of California’s correctional system.
“You’re being asked to provide full funding — from design all the way through construction — for proposals without essentially any details,” Caitlin O’Neil, an LAO analyst who specialized in state corrections, told lawmakers. “... This means that the legislature risks approving funding for projects that it may ultimately disagree with.”
During budget hearings, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-Alameda, read out a long list of concerns, including the ability to scale the California Model, the programming changes that would be implemented and potential environmental impacts. The latter is because the new educational center at San Quentin would bypass historic preservation requirements and review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
“I just want to be clear that I don’t think that the role of the Legislature is to green-light a proposal without any ability to be able to weigh in,” Bonta said.
Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, called the administration’s timeline for completion by the end of 2025 “unrealistic,” adding that he felt the project was being rushed.
Specter, who played an integral role in bringing Norway’s correctional model back to the U.S., said Newsom’s plan for San Quentin was a “far cry” from the overhaul achieved in Norway.
Although he agrees with the governor’s vision, Specter said he “didn’t think it was the right way to go about it.”
“They didn’t start by renovating a building,” he said about Norway. “They started by developing a white paper — an analysis of where they were and where they wanted to be, with clear goals and objectives.”
The makeup of the advisory council, which will be deciding what direction the initiative takes, also has caused some alarm. The council does not include any currently incarcerated people, front-line prison staff or someone representing family members of inmates.
Shortly after the governor’s March visit to San Quentin, a group of inmates called The People in Blue penned a letter, asking for a seat at the table. Some changes they said they wanted to see include better hygiene kits, fresh fruits and vegetables, an indoor gym to use during inclement weather and programs about money management and credit building.
“The dynamics of rehabilitation in action, and how to foster a rehabilitative environment, can only come from the stakeholders who have never been consulted on the issue; the incarcerated people doing the work,” their letter read.
Under the current plan, the advisory council will need to provide recommendations by the fall of this year to inform the design of the educational and vocational center. The LAO’s report said that the compressed timeline “severely limits the council’s time to develop well-informed recommendations” and also undermines legislative oversight and public input on the project.
Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, recently said she was eager to see this new California Model in action but lamented that she was not getting “any sense of what that means.”
“I want to believe,” she said, “but you’re not giving me much here to work with as far as what we’re gonna get ourselves into.”
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