State Prisons in California

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation - Prisons & Inmate Search

California State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) runs the largest state-run prison system in the United States. California’s first lockup was a prison ship, the Waban, anchored in San Francisco Bay in 1851, and San Quentin opened the following year as the state’s first prison. Folsom followed in 1880. The agency was known as the California Department of Corrections for decades before it was reorganized in the mid-2000s and given its current name, adding “Rehabilitation” to reflect new education and treatment goals.

At the end of May 2026, CDCR held just under 88,000 people in its prisons and fire camps, about 3,600 of them women. That is far below the peak of more than 160,000 in the late 2000s, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered California to reduce severe overcrowding. People 55 and older now make up about a fifth of the prison population.

How many prisons does California have?

CDCR operates 31 adult prisons, a number that drops to 30 once Norco closes this fall, along with conservation (fire) camps where incarcerated crews help fight wildfires. With so many facilities, it helps to know a few by role:

• San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (Marin County), the oldest prison, now being remade around education and job training
• Folsom State Prison, made famous by Johnny Cash’s 1968 concert album
• Pelican Bay State Prison (Crescent City), the state’s high-security prison near the Oregon border
• California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (Corcoran), the most populous prison, and California Men’s Colony (San Luis Obispo), the largest by design capacity
• Central California Women’s Facility (Chowchilla) and California Institution for Women (Chino), the two main women’s prisons

Reception: the first stop

After sentencing, men are bused from county jail to a reception center, mainly North Kern State Prison and Wasco State Prison in Kern County. All women are received at the Central California Women’s Facility. In reception, staff review the case file, run medical, dental and mental health exams and assign a security level and permanent prison. People can stay in reception for weeks to a few months, and visiting is more limited there than at a regular prison, so call the reception center before planning a trip.

Finding someone in a California prison

CDCR’s California Incarcerated Records and Information Search (CIRIS) shows a person’s CDCR number, current prison, admission date, commitment county and parole hearing dates. The CDCR number is required on every letter and visiting application.

Prison closures

Falling numbers have let California close whole prisons. Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy shut in 2021, the California Correctional Center in Susanville in 2023 and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe after that. The California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, the fifth prison CDCR has moved to close since 2021, is shutting down in fall 2026. The state expects these four closures to save about $594 million a year by 2027–28, and it has also shut individual yards and housing units at other prisons.

Federal courts and prison health care

Medical care in California prisons has been run by a federal receiver since 2006, after a judge in Plata v. Brown found care so poor that it was costing lives. The Plata case and a mental health case, Coleman, led to the 2011 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Plata ordering the state to cut its prison population. The mental health program now has a court receiver as well.

The end of San Quentin’s death row

California still has the death penalty in law, with about 578 people under a death sentence, the most of any state. In practice, no one has been executed since Clarence Ray Allen on January 17, 2006. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a moratorium in March 2019, withdrew the state’s lethal injection procedure and closed the execution chamber at San Quentin. The state then dismantled the country’s largest death row: beginning in 2022, men with death sentences were moved from San Quentin to other high-security prisons, where they can work and pay restitution to victims. Women with death sentences, long held at Chowchilla, were moved into the general population there. California has carried out 13 executions since 1976.

California juvenile facilities

California no longer has state youth prisons. The Division of Juvenile Justice, which grew out of the old California Youth Authority, closed on June 30, 2023, under Senate Bill 823. Youth found responsible for serious offenses now stay in secure youth treatment facilities run by county probation departments in or near their home county, and youth awaiting court are held in county juvenile halls. The state’s Office of Youth and Community Restoration (OYCR) guides and funds the counties but does not run facilities. Some county systems, Los Angeles above all, have struggled, with state inspectors finding units unsuitable for youth. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact the county probation department.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or Office of Youth and Community Restoration, choose a facility from the list below.

Each prison you click on below will provide specific, detailed information about the facility's: 

• inmate search,
• location,
• contact information,
• directions,
• inmate visitation,
• mail,
• phone accounts,
• money accounts,
• commissary,
• texting and emailing where available, and
• inmate tablet rental where available.