Administration Looking at Rural Sites for New Prisons

With a steady rise in the number of felons and growing resistance to new prisons among urban dwellers, the Deukmejian Administration has decided to look to California’s sparsely populated rural areas as the best location for new state penitentiaries.

Officials of the Department of Corrections on Wednesday cited the governor’s prolonged battle to locate a prison in Los Angeles County as good reason to target rural communities that want prisons, rather than those that will fight to keep them out.

While Gov. George Deukmejian is bound by state law to build two prisons in Los Angeles County, there are no such legal restrictions on location of future prison sites.

“We’re prone to work with communities that are responsive and that throw out the red carpet for us,” Department of Corrections Director James Rowland told the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations.

After a decade of planning and two years of political haggling among state lawmakers, Deukmejian last year persuaded the Legislature to authorize construction of the Los Angeles County prisons--one in an urban area on Los Angeles’ Eastside and a second west of Lancaster. Both are in the planning stages and face possible court attacks and environmental reviews before construction can begin.

During last year’s debate, aides to the governor repeatedly told lawmakers that prisons ought to be located in urban centers because of the availability of transportation and other facilities, as well as the proximity to courts.

New Stance

On Wednesday, however, corrections officials seemed to back off that stance, saying that rural areas offer lower land costs and a desire to boost their farm-based economies, making them more attractive as prison sites.

Judith McGillivray, who heads the department’s community relations program, said: “Los Angeles fought us every step of the way. . . . Meanwhile, we have communities that are willing, and we have been able to site at least six prisons” in rural areas.

The department’s new stance came to light as officials unveiled plans for three new prisons in the southern San Joaquin Valley and Imperial County.

The San Joaquin Valley prisons will be located in Wasco, a town of 12,000, 28 miles north of Bakersfield, and in Delano, 15 miles to the north along California 99. Both prisons, which are expected to cost $190 million each, are planned as “reception centers,” where felons are evaluated before being sent to permanent cell blocks.

The third prison in Imperial County is proposed as a maximum-security facility with a capacity for 3,500 inmates. The exact cost and location have yet to be determined, but officials said it would be located about 100 miles east of San Diego.

No significant opposition to the prisons has surfaced, and, in the case of the Delano and Wasco proposals, city and county officials have lobbied the Deukmejian Administration to be considered for the projects.

“Our main motivation is jobs,” said Wasco City Manager John Henrickson, who noted that Wasco’s unemployment rate averages more than 20%. Citing expectations that a new prison will bring more than 1,000 jobs, with salaries above $20,000 each, Henrickson added: “It’s very attractive to a county that rises and falls on the economy of farming.”

Currently, California’s 19 state prisons house nearly 70,000 inmates, a number that is expected to grow to 100,000 in the next four years. Since Deukmejian took office in 1983, 13 new prisons have been authorized by the Legislature in a $2-billion construction program that is considered the nation’s largest.

May Be Delayed

Even so, projections are that many more prisons will be needed, and the state has already run out of money for new prison construction. In fact, the three new prison projects may be delayed or abandoned if voters fail to approve an $850-million bond issue planned for the November ballot, corrections officials said.

Despite rural California’s apparent zeal for new prisons, there are signs of trouble on the horizon. School officials in those communities are complaining loudly that new prisons will bring growth and a need for schools that is beyond what their districts can afford.

“It is possible that corrections policy will be dictated by the needs of small towns,” warned James W. L. Park, special consultant to the legislative committee.