If you serve time in a California prison, you’ll often find yourself trapped in a cramped cell with strangers. You can hang a sheet to create a sense of privacy between the bed and the toilet. Any little thing can trigger tension and anxiety—body odor, snoring, lights.
Every moment becomes a test to avoid confrontation or argument. Without immediate help from the police, fear and anxiety can build up within you. Day after day, your mental health deteriorates.
“You don’t necessarily know what the person’s abilities are or what their crimes are,” said Steven Warren, a resident at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. “You’re not told any of that when you’re in a cell with them.
“I don’t know if this person has any inclination to murder me in my sleep or commit an act of violence against me simply because they feel a certain way.”
Some policymakers and prison officials in California believe it’s time to reconsider these potentially harmful housing conditions. They argue that providing more single-occupancy cells may be in the best interest of prison residents and public safety.
That’s possible because California’s incarcerated population has continued to decline — from a peak of more than 173,000 in 2006 to less than 90,000 today. Some prisons have closed, while resentencing and parole eligibility changes have helped thousands be released.
Rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities also remain an increasing focus under former Gov. Jerry Brown and current Gov. Gavin Newsom. San Quentin Rehabilitation Center is at the forefront of the discussion, with its “subsistence” housing units consisting entirely of single-person cells and plans for similar repurposing of its vacated death row cells. A spokesman for the prison said “efforts” were underway to provide single cells to all incarcerated people by spring 2026.
A bill introduced in the California Legislature this year would create single cells in more prisons. The measure was not sent to Newsom but is expected to return in 2026.
“We want people to have the opportunity to come back to our communities, and we want them to do it in the healthiest way possible,” the District of San Francisco said. Atty. Brooke Jenkins helped draft the legislation.
“You can’t do that if you’re in an environment that creates chaos and stress – or you can’t sleep, you have conflicts, you get irritable because you sleep with one eye open.”
Dialogue leads to change
Jenkins has visited San Quentin several times over the past two years and talked with Warren and others. More importantly, she listened.
“One of the conversations we’re having inside with some of the residents is about inmate violence and all the issues that come with sharing cells,” Jenkins said.
She contacted Democratic Assemblyman Damon Connolly, who represents San Rafael. They co-authored an Assembly bill proposing a single-cell pilot program in four California prisons.
The text of the bill states that “able to participate properly in a rehabilitation program.” “Incarcerated individuals must be able to sleep without fear of physical harm.”
Connolly said single cells also provide a safer working environment for correctional officers and staff. “To me, that’s consistent with the larger goals that the governor and many of us are pursuing.”
The state’s prison union agrees with Connolly and Jenkins.
California Correctional Peace Officers Association. generally supported Newsom’s emphasis on inmate rehabilitation and began lobbying publicly against further prison closures.
The 24,500-member union is a major player in the Capitol, having donated $7 million to state lawmakers since 2015, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database. It also provides $1.75 million to help Newsom defeat a recall campaign against him in 2021 and another $1 million to support Newsom’s 2024 mental health ballot measure.
“Threats of violence and tensions in shared cells … exacerbate conflicts among inmates, requiring the intervention of correctional officers who put themselves at risk, thereby exacerbating the overall risk to all parties involved within the facility,” the California Correctional Peace Officers Association said in a letter of support to Connolly.
Warren recalled the inmate violence that occurred in 2021 as something he cannot forget.
“A young man beat an older gentleman to death in a cell four or five cells away from me,” he said. “It’s crazy. After everything was said and done, there was a lot of discussion about these two people not being together – one had issues with the other, but (officials) didn’t adequately consider mental health issues.”
A new era of freedom from incarceration
Old prisons, such as San Quentin and Folsom, were originally designed to hold one person per cell. In response to mass incarceration and overcrowding in the 1990s and early 2000s, corrections departments threw beds into otherwise uninhabitable spaces. They let people sleep in gyms, hallways and even stairwells.
They welded and bolted extra bunk beds into nearly every single cell.
Decades of prison rights litigation finally forced the system to address housing issues at 200 percent of its design capacity. Two class-action lawsuits, Coleman v. Newsom and Plata v. Newsom, resulted in federal oversight and forced capacity reductions to 137%.
The current housing rate is approximately 120 percent of design capacity, which is the average of all 31 state prisons.
Newsom is under pressure to close more plants. His administration estimates that closing a prison would save about $150 million a year and is the only reliable way to truly reduce corrections spending. So far, he has closed four prisons and has one more in the process of closing.
Some advocacy groups and incarcerated people oppose Connolly and Jenkins’ bill to provide more single-room housing. These groups, known as prison abolitionists, want to see as many prisons closed as possible. They believe that providing more single-cell units could interfere with this agenda.
Kenthi Porter, an inmate at Ironwood State Prison, submitted a letter to the Legislature through the abolitionist group Initiative Justice, saying the single-cell policy “could strengthen the infrastructure of mass incarceration … by utilizing current excess bed space and provide an excuse to halt prison closures or expand existing prison infrastructure in the future.”
Connolly stressed that the bill does not seek to legislate any decision to close prisons.
“The goal is not to keep prisons open that are scheduled to close, nor to reopen prisons that have been closed,” he said. “I fully understand that the goal of reducing incarceration is consistent with the governor’s goal of closing certain prisons. That’s not the issue.”
Jenkins said closing prisons to accommodate a shrinking prison population may not be the best solution for budgetary reasons.
“Closing the prison is symbolic,” she said. “I don’t think it represents genuine concern for people who are currently incarcerated. I think we have to consider the conditions they’re in and not just a token gesture.”
Incentivize good behavior
It is a common practice in prisons to hold two inmates responsible for the actions of one of them, which can hinder parole and chances of returning to prison. When police find contraband such as drugs, weapons or cell phones in a cell, they typically issue a disciplinary violation report, holding both inmates responsible for the violation.
“You may be given a record based on the fact that your fellow inmate was involved in certain activities,” Warren said. “You collectively have to pay a price for what this person did because here you are guilty until proven innocent — and most of the time, they generally assume we are guilty.”
Disciplinary violations remain part of an incarcerated person’s permanent record and affect their chances of parole or resentencing. Errors or exonerations may be documented, but these reports never completely disappear.
Jenkins asked the San Quentin government to provide data on the number of reports that occur within Downer, its single-cell “bread and butter” unit that serves residents who exhibit undisciplined behavior.
“San Quentin received over 3,000 articles last year, and of those 3,000 articles, I believe seven were from Downer,” Jenkins said. “What you’re seeing is that it’s working. The effectiveness of it is that it allows correctional officers who work in the department to actually reduce stress on themselves because they know these inmates are motivated to follow the rules.”
Erick Maciel lives in Downer and has lived there since the cell opened in 2023. He said it was the first and only time he had his own cell in more than eight years of incarceration.
“Donner felt like I was on parole,” Marcil said. “It’s the closest thing to feeling free in prison because we don’t feel pressure from correctional officers or anything like that. That’s really important because now I’m able to focus on myself.”
Remaining at Downer required remaining undisciplined, so Marcil and others in the unit acted accordingly.
“I was afraid of the consequences,” he said of the possibility of being reported and losing his single-cell privileges. “I’m very conscious that I always follow the rules – because I appreciate where I am.”
Joe Garcia writes for CalMatters.
