High Desert State Prison (California)
 Aerial View |
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| Location | Susanville, California |
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| Coordinates | 40°24′30″N 120°30′50″W / 40.4084°N 120.5139°WCoordinates: 40°24′30″N 120°30′50″W / 40.4084°N 120.5139°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Security class | Maximum |
| Capacity | 2,324 |
| Population | 3,442 (148.1%) (as of 31 December 2012) |
| Opened | August 1995 |
| Managed by | California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation |
| Warden | Fred Foulk |
High Desert State Prison (HDSP) is a high-security state prison that houses level IV inmates located in Susanville, Lassen County, California. Opened in 1995, it has a capacity of 2,324 persons; in May 2017 it held 3,788 inmates.
Also located in Susanville is the state California Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison. A third prison facility, the Federal Correctional Institution, Herlong, is also located within Lassen County, California. Half the adult population of Susanville works at these prisons. The prisons and their effects on the community, including as a source of much needed jobs, were explored in the documentary, Prison Town, USA (2007), aired on PBS.
In late 2015 the state Office of the Inspector General completed a six-month investigation into conditions at the prison, after complaints of officer misconduct and prisoner abuse, and issued its report, calling for changes at the facility. Although there are buildings to house certain inmates in protective custody, such as sex offenders, officers put other prisoners near them. The inmates are mostly minorities and complained about discriminatory treatment, as well as officers allowing drug sales and violent retaliation; the officers are mostly white. The prison has had a rapid turnover in top management for nearly a decade, with seven wardens in eight years. In their report investigators wrote there was a “perception of insularity and indifference to inmates” at High Desert, exacerbated by its remoteness and “a labor organization that opposes oversight to the point of actively discouraging members from coming forward with information that could … adversely affect another officer.”
Special Review: High Desert State Prison/ Susanville, CA], at Prison Legal News, December 2015, full text of Office of the Inspector General report online
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