San Quentin

Located in Marin County, California, San Quentin State Prison is California's oldest and bestknown correctional institution. It is one of the “big house” prisons (a term popularized in movies), and was long considered the prison of last resort in the California state penal system. When California still belonged to Mexico, and before centralized prisons were built, convicts were typically held in either Mexican jails or on barges. After California became a U.S. territory, more than 400 acres of land on San Quentin Point was purchased by the state, which awarded a contract for construction of the prison in 1851.

Prisoners were used for both labor and profit at San Quentin. Convicts built the prison during the day and slept aboard a ship until construction was completed in 1854. Convict workers also built many roads in northern California, and they were leased out to private businesses. Prisoners continued to be hired out despite ongoing objections that the availability of cheap convict labor made for unfair competition in both public and private sector projects. The prison had opened manufacturing facilities, and in 1871, it was making items including bricks and shoes. This practice waned. Inmate work now supports the functions of San Quentin, and products made there are sold only to other California agencies. [Page 1434]

The gas chamber at San Quentin in 1960.

© Bettmann/Corbis; used with permission.

San Quentin originally housed both male and female inmates. In 1933, the women were moved to a new facility constructed at Tehachapi. However, women who receive the death penalty return to San Quentin for execution. The prison was designated as the state's execution site in 1893, and since then more than 300 men and women have been put to death there. Although hanging was the typical means of execution, a gas chamber was constructed in 1938. The prison is a focal point for the ongoing death penalty debate. National and international activists opposed to the death penalty commonly hold demonstrations outside the gates as an inmate's execution date approaches.

George Jackson, black revolutionary and author of Soledad Brother, was placed in San Quentin's adjustment center in 1971. On August 21, 1971, he was killed during an escape attempt. Three prison guards and two other inmates were killed as well.

The lockdown—a disciplinary and protective measure taken by the prison administration in which all the inmates are confined to their cells twenty-four hours a day and leave only for meals—was first used at San Quentin in 1973. The action was a response to a three-year period of violence and gang activity in four California prisons, during which time almost 500 men were stabbed. California director of corrections Raymond K. Procunier ordered a lockdown at Folsom, San Quentin, Soledad, and Tracy prisons, which kept inmates away from work assignments, recreations, and rehabilitation programs for several weeks. Racial division among the prisoners and overcrowding were typical in the 1980s and 1990s, as at many other facilities throughout California.

San Quentin served as one of the two California maximum security penitentiaries for more than 100 years. San Quentin is a medium security corrections facility. Newer, more secure facilities have been constructed throughout the state. San Quentin houses approximately 6,000 inmates, and more than 500 of them are on death row. It also is a reception center, and houses parole violators. In 1999 to 2000, the state reported that the prison employed more than 1,500 employees and had an operating budget of $120 million.

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