State closing major portion of California Men’s Colony prison in San Luis Obispo
The state is closing a major portion of the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, officials announced Tuesday.
As part of a string of reductions statewide, the lower-security West Facility at CMC will be shut down. As of June, it housed around 2,000 inmates.
The move comes “with an eye toward fiscal responsibility,” according to a news release from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Five other prisons will have partial closures in addition to CMC, while the Chuckawalla Valley State Prison will be shut down completely by March 2025.
The department is also ending its $32 million annual lease with CoreCivic, a private prison and detention center company, for California City Correctional Facility.
CMC’s West Facility is a Level I and II complex with four independent facilities. It houses medium- and minimum-security, non-designated programming facility inmates in a dormitory setting, according to the department’s website.
The facility currently provides mental health care for qualifying inmates, houses inmate firefighters who help fight wildfires, and has a K-9 training program to train service dogs to aid first responders with PTSD and other physical disabilities.
Inmates housed in the facility also had access to academic and technical education and self-improvement programs such as cognitive behavior therapy programs, substance abuse education, criminal thinking, anger management and family relationships.
According to the latest population count released as of June, CMC had 135 Level I inmates and 1,844 Level II inmates.
They will need to be relocated to another prison, and their rehabilitative, educational and self-help program credits will transfer with them.
Dana Simas, press secretary for the correctional department, told The Tribune in an email that the Cuesta Fire Crew, the inmate fire crew that routinely assists Cal Fire in putting out wildfires, will not be affected by the closure.
The total inmate population at CMC was 3,466 in June. The remaining Level III inmates numbered 1,264 at that time.
They are housed in the East Facility, which is made up of five separate units. All inmates in the East Facility are housed in cells.
It is unclear how soon the West Facility will be closed and how many employees will be affected at this time.
Simas said exact numbers and timelines will not be immediately available.
According to the correctional department’s release, employees will have the option to transfer both within and outside of impacted counties. Impacted employees will also have a hiring preference if they chose to transfer to a different prison or state agency.
CMC is authorized for a staffing level of nearly 1,500 employees, which makes the prison one of San Luis Obispo County’s top employers.
“California Men’s Colony is SLO County’s fifth-largest employer, supporting 1,500 good-paying jobs,” the Regional Economic Action Coalition (REACH) said in a statement to The Tribune. “The loss of even some of these jobs will have a big impact that will be felt widely across our community. We are eager to learn more about the state’s plan and how our community can engage in the decisions being made.”
Staff writer Kaytlyn Leslie contributed to this report.
