California Men's Colony (CMC) is a male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Location | San Luis Obispo County, near San Luis Obispo, California |
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Coordinates | 35°19′30″N 120°41′53″W / 35.325°N 120.698°W |
Status | Operational |
Security class | Minimum to medium (With Maximum on Override) |
Capacity | 3,816 |
Population | 3,254 (85.3% capacity) (as of January 31, 2023[1]) |
Opened | 1954 |
Managed by | California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation |
Warden | Danny Samuel[2] |
CMC has two physically separate facilities on its 356 acres (144 ha): East and West. The minimum-security West facility includes Level I ("without a secure perimeter") housing and Level II ("with secure perimeter fences and armed coverage") open dormitories.[3] The medium-security east facility has level III with individual cells, fenced perimeters and armed coverage, with housing divided into four quadrangles, as well as a licensed hospital and mental health delivery system.[3]
As of Fiscal Year 2006/2007, CMC had a total of 1,870 staff and an annual operating budget of $151 million. As of March 2012, the facility's total population was 5,524, or more than 143.9 percent of its design capacity of 3,838.[4]
As of April 30, 2020, CMC was incarcerating people at 97.1% of its design capacity, with 3,727 occupants.[5]
CMC has been called a "country club" and "garden spot" among California prisons because of its wide variety of vocational, educational and psychological-treatment programs.[6][7][8] Notable CMC programs include:
The West Facility opened in 1954 and the East Facility opened in 1961. Three female former CMC workers won a 1998 settlement for $4.3 million as a result of a sexual harassment lawsuit, which was "the largest such settlement ever for the Department of Corrections."[15] A San Luis Obispo County grand jury produced a 2005 report observing that "while old and overcrowded, CMC was well maintained."[16][17] The West facility is slated for closure.[18]
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