San Quentin State Prison (SQ)

San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated town of San Quentin in Marin County.

Opened in July 1852, it is the oldest prison in California. The state's only death row for male inmates, the largest in theUnited States, is located at the prison. It has a gas chamber, but since 1996 executions at the prison have been carried out by lethal injection. The prison has been featured on film, video, and television; is the subject of many books; has hosted concerts; and has housed many notorious inmates.

Facilities

The correctional complex sits on Point San Quentin, which comprises 432 acres (1.75 km2) on the north side of San Francisco Bay. The prison complex itself occupies 275 acres (1.11 km2), valued in a 2001 study at between $129 million and $664 million.

The prison complex has its own ZIP code for mail sent to inmates, 94974; the ZIP code of the adjacent community of Point San Quentin Village is 94964. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay to the south and west and by Interstate 580 to the north and east, near the northern terminus of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

As of October 30, 2013 the prison had a design capacity of 3,082 but a total institution population of 4,223, for an occupancy rate of 137 percent. It has Level I ("Open dormitories without a secure perimeter") housing; Level II ("Open dormitories with secure perimeter fences and armed coverage") housing; a Reception Center (RC) which "provides short term housing to process, classify and evaluate incoming inmates"; and a Condemned unit.

As of Fiscal Year 2006/2007, the prison had 1,718 staff and an annual budget of $210 million. It is one of the largest prisons in the United States with a population of 4,223 inmates as of October 30, 2013. By January 2016, the population had declined to 3,682 inmates.

Death row

Men condemned to death in California (with some exceptions) must be held at San Quentin, while condemned women are held at Central California Women's Facility inChowchilla. As of December 2015, San Quentin held almost 700 male inmates in its Condemned Unit, or "death row." As of 2001, San Quentin's death row was described as "the largest in the Western Hemisphere"; as of 2005, it was called "the most populous execution antechamber in the United States." The states of Florida and Texas had fewer death row inmates in 2008 (397 and 373 respectively) than San Quentin.

The death row at San Quentin is divided into three sections: the quiet "North-Segregation" or "North-Seg," built in 1934, for prisoners who "don't cause trouble"; the "East Block," a "crumbling, leaky maze of a place built in 1927"; and the "Adjustment Center" for the "worst of the worst." Most of the prison's death row inmates reside in the East Block. The fourth floor of the North Block was the prison's first death row facility, but additional death row space opened after executions resumed in the U.S. in 1978. The adjustment center received solid doors, preventing "chunking" or attacking persons with bodily waste. As of 2016 it housed 81 death row inmates and four non-death row inmates. A dedicated psychiatric facility serves the prisoners. A converted shower bay in the East Block hosts religious services. Many prison programs available for most inmates are unavailable for death row inmates.

Although $395 million was allocated in the 2008–2009 state budget for new death row facilities at San Quentin, in December 2008 two legislators introduced bills to eliminate the funding. The state had planned to build a new death row facility, but Governor Jerry Brown canceled those plans in 2011. In 2015 Brown asked the Legislature for funds for a new death row as the current death row facilities were becoming filled. At the time the non-death row prison population was decreasing, opening room for death row inmates. As of 2015 the San Quentin death row has a capacity of 715 prisoners.

Executions

As noted above, all executions in California, of both male and female prisoners, must occur at San Quentin. The execution chamber is located in a one story addition in proximity to the East Block. Women executed in California would be transported to San Quentin by bus before being put to death.

The methods for execution at San Quentin have changed over time. Prior to 1893, the counties executed convicts. Between 1893 and 1937, 215 people were executed at San Quentin by hanging, after which 196 prisoners died in the gas chamber. In 1995, the use of gas for execution was ruled "cruel and unusual punishment," which led to executions inside the gas chamber by lethal injection. Between 1996 and 2006, 11 people were executed at San Quentin by lethal injection.

In April 2007, staff of the California Legislative Analyst's Office discovered that a new execution chamber was being built at San Quentin; legislators subsequently "accuse[d] the governor of hiding the project from the Legislature and the public." The old lethal injection facility had included an injection room of 43 square feet (4.0 m2) and a single viewing area; the facility that was being built included an injection chamber of 230 square feet (21 m2) and three viewing areas for family, victim, and press. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped construction of the facility the next week. The Legislature later approved $180,000 to finish the project, and the facility was completed.

In addition to State executions, three Federal executions have been carried out at San Quentin. Samuel Richard Shockley and Miran Edgar Thompson had been incarcerated at Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary and were executed on December 3, 1948, for the murder of two prison guards during the Battle of Alcatraz.[28] Carlos Romero Ochoa had murdered a federal immigration officer after he was caught smuggling Mexican aliens across the border near El Centro, California. He was executed at San Quentin's gas chamber on December 10, 1948.