The State - News from Oct. 1, 1986

Northern California’s first new maximum-security prison in 116 years--a one-story facility on 81 acres next to the 106-year-old, maximum-security Folsom Prison, 20 miles northeast of Sacramento--is expected to get its first inmates soon. Rod Blonien, chief of Gov. George Deukmejian’s prison building program, conducted a tour of the new lockup, called California State Prison-Sacramento County, and said it should be complete and functional well before the target date in April. The first section of 512 cells is ready now, he said. The prison, which will house the system’s most dangerous inmates, has solid walls and metal cell doors to reduce the chance of prisoners stabbing each other through bars or hiding contraband behind loosened concrete blocks.