California State Prison - Research Paper Example

Hence, all of the California’s State Prisons are equipped with the highest security and major facilities. The State Prison is designed as multi-mission institutions with high level and minimum security. They have the working facilities of soap manufacturing, laundry with other major improving conveniences relating to health care, rehabilitation and education, self-improvement, vocational and psychiatric needs (Stephan, 2004). Population California State, having the second largest Police Department makes not mistake in bringing the offenders to the prisons.

During the first six years of the 21st century the population peaked till 173,000 inmates but finally started to go down and ended up around 163,000 by the year 2010. Due to the over flowing population capacity of the prison, the Supreme Court ordered to either transfer or release around 30,000 prisoners by the end of year 2013. It was a necessary step taken in order to maintain the conditions of the State Prison. Due to this management the small offenders are sent to small local custodies than state prison, which shows a great 12% decrease in the population, which is about 141,000 inmates by the end of February, 2012.

The population around the State Prison is also aging, with only 13% prisoners under the age of 25. This is majorly due to two factors. The first being the overall age of California State population is getting older, and secondly people are sentenced to more years in the prison (Hayes, 2012). Women constitute only 5% of the State Prison population under less crime intensity. Yet the overall population of State Prison constitutes of a major population of African Americans, about 5 times as much as any other race (Hayes, 2012).

Budget Four of the California’s State Prisons in Solano, LA, Sacramento, and Corcoran runs under the collective budget of 719.4 Million Dollars. This includes the budget for the facilities of education, health care, and institution. Even with this budget the California State Prison needs more rooms and a larger bed count as most of the prisons are much over their designed capacity. California having the largest population in the United States equally spends the most on its inmates as well, with an estimate of 16000$ annually spent just on health care of each inmate (census 2008-2009) which is more than thrice of Texas which spends less than 4000$ per inmate in a year (Hayes, 2012).

Level of surveillance The California State Prison works under the special level of security which enables them to categorize the prisoners accordingly. Level 1: Open dormitories with no secure perimeter. Level 2: The dormitories are open but with secure perimeter and armed coverage. Level 3: It included personal cells with fences perimeters along with armed coverage throughout the area. Level 4: Along with individual cells, the perimeters are fenced or walled with high security and more staff.

The guards protect the inside and the outside the prison area. Security Housing Unit (SHU): This area comes under the level 4 security level, that includes inmates that are confirmed prison gang members, bosses and high tension victims are kept under surveillance at all times. Reception Center (RC): This is the short term housing facility that enables the state prison to identify on which level the prisoner should be housed. Condemned (Cond): The