Inmates, Guards Pack Bags as Women's Prison Shuts Down
STOCKTON -- Hundreds of inmates and guards packed their belongings and transferred to new assignments as a Northern California women's medium-security prison locked its doors for the last time.
Over the last couple of months, Northern California Women's Facility prison officials have moved about 450 inmates to other facilities and paroled close to 200 others. Earlier this week, the remaining 65 women took one last look at the concrete and cinder-block buildings and boarded a bus to other prisons in the state.
Meanwhile, 130 prison guards lined up by seniority and, one by one, entered the inmates' visiting room to learn their destiny. For those with more years in uniform, it meant selecting from a number of options and a plum reassignment nearby. For those with less experience, it meant forced relocation.
Because of the state's budget problems and a declining population of female inmates, the Department of Corrections followed a recommendation by the governor to close the prison. The department expects to save $1.5 million over the remaining four months of this fiscal year, and another $10.5 million in the next fiscal year from the closure.
Some guards said they believed the prison's closure was a political move.
"We were used as a sacrificial lamb," said Angelina Moore, a guard with six years of experience who transferred to the women's prison six months ago. "[Gov. Gray] Davis needed to make his cuts, so they looked around and we're the smallest place in the state
But the pressure to trim prison budgets is a national trend, not a California anomaly, according to criminologists and others in the field.
"Fiscally motivated pressures on prison policy is a universal problem," said Franklin Zimring, a criminologist at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law.
In 1997, the number of female inmates in the state reached nearly 11,000. It declined to about 9,800 at the end of last year, according to the Department of Corrections.
Noting the decline in female inmates, the state's legislative analyst suggested to the Legislature in February 2001 that if it needed to save costs, it could close the Northern California Women's Facility because of its relatively high operating costs and its proximity to other prisons with space.
Closing the prison, transferring inmates to four other facilities and employee relocation costs could cost the state approximately $2.2 million, said corrections spokesman Russ Heimrich.
