| Aerial View | |
| Location | Susanville, California |
|---|---|
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Minimum-medium |
| Capacity | 4,096 |
| Population | 5,869 (143%) (as of fy 2008/09[1]) |
| Opened | 1963 |
| Managed by | California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation |
| Director | Ron Barnes, Warden |
California Correctional Center (CCC) is a state prison in the city of Susanville in Northern California.[2][3]
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CCC's missions are "to receive, house, and train minimum-custody inmates for placement into one of the institution's 18 Northern California conservation camps" and "to provide meaningful work, training, and education programs for inmates who do not meet the criteria for assignment to a conservation camp."[4] It has 1,100 acres (450 ha) including Level l ("Open dormitories without a secure perimeter") housing, Level ll ("Open dormitories with secure perimeter fences and armed coverage") housing, Level lll ("Individual cells, fenced perimeters and armed coverage") housing, and camps.[4][5] As of Fiscal Year 2006/2007, CCC had 1,184 staff and an annual budget of $139 million.[4] As of September 2007, it had a design capacity of 3,883 but a total institution population of 6,093, for an occupancy rate of 156.9 percent.[6]
The prison was built in 1963 as a minimum-security facility and was expanded in 1987 to include a medium-security inmates.[7][8]
Among the vocational programs at CCC, the "certified 90-day horse gentling program" for wild horses begun in 1987 has received much attention.[9] The federal Bureau of Land Management supplies wild horses captured from the "high desert border country of northeastern California and western Nevada"; inmates "are not paid for their participation."[10] After the program, the horses "become candidates for the periodic public horse adoptions held at the prison."[10] The program is thought to benefit inmates; as one participant said, "it teaches you patience and teaches you that if you want something, you have to work at it."[11]
In 2004, the anti-prison political action group Californians United for a Responsible Budget coalition (which advocates for "lowering the number of inmates and prisons") suggested that CCC and three other prisons be closed as a cost-cutting measure for the state of California[12], but CCC subsequently continued to operate. A documentary film Prison Town, USA was shown as part of the P.O.V. series on PBS television in July 2007; it concerned the impacts of CCC, High Desert State Prison, and the opening of the nearby Federal Correctional Institution, Herlong upon the residents of Susanville.[13][14] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "directed inmate firefighters and staff from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation," including those from CCC, to help fight the October 2007 California wildfires.[15]
