One of California’s largest expenses is the state prison system. New details from Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget, released Friday, show a department in the midst of transition.
CapRadio’s Kate Wolffe has more.
For the past 6 years, California has been scaling back its prison footprint, and trying to cut costs.
In 2023, the state closed a prison in Susanville. It closed another outside of Riverside in November. In total it’s saved $900 million dollars a year with full and partial closures.
Some of that money is being filtered back into the prison system, like towards a new education and vocational building at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and for better, more locally grown food for incarcerated people.
The corrections department projects a modest increase in the prison population due to the passage of Prop 36 this November.
The total state population has decreased by over 40-thousand people since 2015.
