‘Nothing Will Be the Same’: A Prison Town Weighs a Future Without a Prison
The New York Times
After a decade of efforts that sharply reduced inmate populations, California is closing prisons. One town at the edge of a valley in remote northeast California whose economy is built on incarceration is waging a legal battle to keep a prison open.
SUSANVILLE, Calif. — The Mauldin family loved their house. They bought it during the financial crisis and spent a lot of money to upgrade the tan, farmhouse-style home. New landscaping and fencing so the two kids would have a nice place to play. An entirely new kitchen and new floors. Rows of lilac bushes lining the driveway. But when word came down last spring that a prison in the town of Susanville would close, the family made a decision they never wanted to make: They put their home up for sale.
“We put our heart and soul into this house and this area,” said Jessica Mauldin, 39, whose husband works as a prison guard. “We have built our village here.”
In Susanville, at the edge of a valley hemmed in by the Sierra Nevada in remote northeast California, there are nearly as many people living inside the walls of the town’s two state prisons, roughly 7,000 people, as outside. About half of the adults work at the prisons — the soon-to-be shuttered minimal security California Correctional Center and a maximum security facility, High Desert, which will remain open.
