‘We’ve got four public prisons and one private prison closed’: CA abolitionist coalition takes on the prison-industrial complex

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Today we are discussing California’s prison system and the abolition movement working to dismantle it. Joining me today is Woods Ervin. She’s the National Co-Director for Campaigns and Projects at Critical Resistance, an organization founded in the mid 1990s with the mission of ending the use of prisons and police. Woods, thank you so much for joining me today.

Woods Ervin:

Thank you so much for having me today, Mansa. I appreciate it.

Mansa Musa:

Recently the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation announced that the California Rehabilitation Center or CRC in Norco will close in the fall of 2026. Now, CIC is known for the most inhumane conditions as it relate to road infested unsafe drinking water, severe overcrowding, stifling heat and violence at the hands of the staff. Can you walk us through how this came about and were there any unlikely alliances that emerged in the fight to close prisons that people might learn from when building coalitions?

Woods Ervin:

Thank you so much. So that’s a really great question. So just to take us back a little bit to 2020, Critical Resistance joined a campaign, a coalition that was leading a campaign to close 10 prisons by 2025, feeling ambitious, it was 20. And the coalition is actually in an alliance. The California is United for Responsible Budget.

And at the time around 2020, we heard from the legislative analyst office, which is a bipartisan research office within the California state infrastructure that at the very least five prisons could close without impacting the imprison population. Just with all of the work that we’ve been doing to get people out of prison over the last decade, the population had gotten to that point. So we launched this campaign and had moved a few prisons towards closure, but we were focusing on the person who had the decision making power ultimately, which was Governor Newsom. And he was just making choices around whatever prison he saw fit to close, I think in relationship to or talking to CDCR, but not necessarily to us. And so even though we knew that Gut Newsom does have the final say in whether or not our prison closes, we also thought that everyday people should also get a say in how dollars are spent.

So we decided to engage in a site fight just to sort of test our power, our ability to be able to name a prison and then have that prison get shut down. So when we first started the campaign, it was based in what we called the People’s Plan for Prison Closure, which was a research project that Curb did back in 2019 or 2028 where they interviewed hundreds of imprison people across the state. What were the prisons that were most toxic? And given everything you listed initially, clearly CRC Norco was one of the prisons at the top of that list. So we pulled 10 prisons and we were just like between people inside wanting the prison to close. And we had heard that there were pushes from the city council and the mayor to close the prison as well. And we thought that might be good conditions for trying out focusing on CRC Norco to get it to close.

So we did the sort of, I think some of the usual things around grassroots organizing where we, and agitated our base of supporters to send the governor letters for closure or advocating for closure. We did also engage in mobilizations to CRC Norco as direct action and also we organized with interfaith movements. So a bunch of churches from across the state that would mobilize to Norco, they did a pilgrimage of the direct action as well to show their opposition to Norco support for people inside and the desire for it to close. But we didn’t want to stop there. We did some organizing outside of the prison, which looked like what we call parking lot outreach days. So with the goal of organizing the families of people

Mansa Musa:

And not to cut you off and that was onsite at the institutions. When you say pa, alright, go ahead. That’s

Woods Ervin:

Every weekend when folks would visit their family members inside we would have a table with food and water and iceman outside. And so the goal was to one, just generally support family members of people who were in CRC Norco and then also to let them know about the campaign to encourage them to join if they were interested in doing so. And we were hoping to also then set the groundwork so that if we did win the closure of CRC Norco, then we would be prepared to mobilize with family members on that. Right,

Mansa Musa:

Right. And you just described organizing 1 0 1 in terms of going where the people are because as you said, y’all got this strategy to close it. But now we looking at conditions that shifted in this country in the interim of what you just said, the mentality has shifted. Now we have the raise on people, rounding people up, ice rate rounding people up because they’re now United States citizens. So we see that. How are y’all looking at alright, the close of these prisons and not allowing them to become a repurposed for federal detention and ice? Is that a part of y’all plan? Because Governor Gavin Newsome signed AB 1 37 to prevent ICE from acquiring closed facilities. Has this legislation been effective in stopping the federal government from taking over sites like FCI, Dublin and Chaco Walla Valley State Prison?

Woods Ervin:

Right on. So we’re definitely excited to have been able to push for AB 1 37 to get passed and that to include some of the language that would allow for prisons that we get closed to not be able to be sold to the federal government. Just like you were saying, 2020 when we started the campaign, it was a different moment when we knew in the fall of last year when Trump got elected and was spouting all the anti-immigrant rhetoric that we needed to get ahead of the issue with prisons being converted to detention centers. So the legislation AB 1 37 currently says that the state has to name a building as excess to fall into the status of not being sold. And while that is one step forward, that does then bring about a lot of challenges in terms of it’s implemented, right? So what the prisons you were speaking to Chuck Wall Valley State Prison is not currently named as excess. So we’re organizing our base to send letters to the governor to move it into that category. But we’re also thinking about this next legislative cycle. How do we figure out ways to either strengthen the legislation via amendment or if there are ways administratively to figure out some supporting the interpretation of the legislation to a little bit one more automatic, it shouldn’t be that we have to fight for every prison that we get closed to then get named as excess so that we don’t have to worry about it getting sold.

And two, so that it’s just broader. So it covers as many of the facilities that get closed as possible. Unfortunately with a case of something like FCI Dublin, which was a federal facility, so it was already federally owned. So AB 1 37 doesn’t cover it, right? Federal property. So there’s no need to exchange hands in terms of ownership,

Mansa Musa:

But there’s always the question, when a prison closed, does it actually mean the conservation, are people being released or are they simply being transferred to another jail or prison? And in that regard, we are looking at the impact of the closure. Talk about the impact of closure when y’all made y’all analysis, how y’all tracking that?

Woods Ervin:

Yes, I can definitely speak to that. So how we’re approaching this is rooted in the answer to your first question because some of our grassroots organizing was not just with people on the outside, it was also on people with people on the inside,

Mansa Musa:

Right?

Woods Ervin:

Okay. We organized with people on the inside about if we were successful in getting Norco name for closure, what would they want to see? How would they want us to approach it? And so really at the top of their desire was for us to move for releases and not transfers. So already a lot of us just wanted to get clarity on we want what’s the highest bar, but then if we don’t have the juice or the capacity to get CR to get our prison system to release everybody what then? And so even though we’ve been continuing to push for releases, not transfers, we’re also realistic about where is there some room beyond that? So what we’ve been trying to do is then also to have, if they are going to be transferring people to try and mitigate the harm as much as possible. So what we’ve looked at is we’ve been trying to push for our process for our prison system to assess eligibility for release and create reentry plans, push for autonomy and choice in the transfer process.

So we know that especially when thinking about programs like programming for folks inside, we’re trying to, there’s a penal code 2030 3.7 in California that should allow for people in prison to choose to be able to continue programming at their next facility. But that will require that the facility that they move to have that program program, right? So we’re pushing for in accordance with law people should be moved to a prison, continue to program and also other things like people should have adequate prep time and in planning and advance the transfer and clearly everything else maintain adequate levels of medical assistant food stocks and space to avoid overcrowding. And so those are some of the things that we are pushing for as part of our ultimate goals release is not

Mansa Musa:

Transferred.

Woods Ervin:

If they’re not going to fully comply with that, we have other demands in addition to that.

Mansa Musa:

I like the strategy because it’s interconnected. You close the prison and you create a transitory environment, then that means that okay, I go from maximum security to medium security to minimum security to pre-release if that’s a system that exists in California. But ultimately I don’t stay in one secure environment. My behavior is now allow me to be able to progress through the system. Whereas though before I’m just, I need a plantation, I need numbers. One of the numbers that need to be on the plantation versus ain’t no more plantations. So we close them. That mean we got to do something with the people and I like that strategy. So that’s all power to the people in that regard. Another factor here is that we had did a story on North Carolina and we found in our study, in our investigation that a lot of prisons in environments where if you got fires, floods when it rains and they don’t have a contingency plan for preparation to move people into a safer environment or close the prison and then have the people move to a more secure environment or process them out. Can you speak to that?

Woods Ervin:

That’s exactly right. I think we saw this back in I think 20 21, 20 22 during the fires, the fire, right? Exactly. In Susanville and we were pushing a closed California correctional center at the time. And at the time, just like CIC Norco, California Correctional Center did not have an emergency plan even though the fire was heading directly towards them. And so we literally had to intervene because family members were calling us and they didn’t know what was going to happen to their loved ones. So because the prison system didn’t have an emergency plan, a contingency plan for that, we were like not only do we need to manage the outside advocates, we have managed this situation when CDCI has all this money to do that, but then also this prison needs to close immediately. Right? Right,

Mansa Musa:

Exactly.

Woods Ervin:

That was a blatant and clear example of the inability for them to keep people inside safe.

Mansa Musa:

It’s only because of the advocacy of families and people much like y’all cells that bring this to national attention. That makes it an issue that has to be dealt with in a more humane manner. Fine. Let’s touch on the broad economic picture. California is basically facing a deficit now. I was looking at how much money in the 20 24, 20 25 fiscal year. They estimated 18.1 billion for that fiscal year. Alright. Talk about perhaps repurposing the facilities. Will it help strengthen the state economy, especially given the outgoing hostility from the Trump administration? So we find ourselves in a situation where you close in prison. Okay. How was this closing and repurposing those facility help strengthen the state’s economy? What’s the economic impact?

Woods Ervin:

I love that question. I let you ask the question. So essentially there are a couple of things. So there is the fact that there’ll be less wasteful spending. So prior to the closure of CRC Norco, California spent 250 million on repairs as we said earlier is in terrible condition. So 250 million on repairing CRC Norco that in a way that wasn’t effective given the state of the prison,

Mansa Musa:

Right? Right, exactly.

Woods Ervin:

We want to stop our prison system, our state from pouring the state’s resources into these dilapidated prisons that need to be closed and have our folks released. So that’s like baseline, right? So also as a result of this continuing trend downward of the population, so the population reductions that have been happening inside of prison, the legislative analyst office shows that California is in a position to close five more prisons and that would save 1.5 billion annual, yeah,

Mansa Musa:

1.5 billion

Woods Ervin:

Foreseeable future. And that can be put towards the deficit, but if as it currently stands, but it can also support some of the gaps in Medi-Cal food services

And other programs, housing exactly. That are being slashed in this moment. There’s also this really interesting opportunity. So as I was saying earlier, the prison system CDCI has no plan whether it be for emergencies or for the prison closure. So what did we do? We came up with a plan and we were like, here’s an example of what we could be doing with as part of prison closures. So we are pushing for the state to not only close prisons permanently and not reopen or sell them, but then to try and transform the conditions of the prison. So that could be tear it down, use it for something else

Like detoxify the land, give it back to the local communities, right? Give it back to put it into a program for reparations or back to this communities we’ve been working with. So that’s one example of what we could do. We’ve been working with an organization called Designing Justice, designing Spaces that does redesigns for prison facilities that could be turned into lots of other things that are generative for the local economy. And clearly from the funds that gets saved from the prison being closed that would’ve gone to that prison, could go back into the general fund at the state level, but then be set aside for the county to make decisions about their local economy and youth. Norco is a particular case. That county is relatively wealthy and conservative, so they actually don’t need the money to do what they want to do with the prison after it shuts down. So what we’re advocating for in that instance is, or instances like these and in general is that the money that would go to that, there’s money that could go to counties, but there’s also the money that should go to the counties. So there’s the counties that the prison is located in, but then there’s counties where the majority of imprison people come from like LA County and there should be more resources going to where the people who are locked up the most come from,

Mansa Musa:

You can divide that like you say, it is equity, economic equity because you can divide that money up in two places where it can be served the most in terms of advancement of humanity. And that’s a good strategy to counter what the Trump administration is doing. They throwing a lot of money to the states and it’s not being regulated. I’ll give you 1.9 billion or I’ll give you like 1.5 million and you just do this right here for me. And whatever happens in terms of being regulated, if you knock somebody’s brains out, if you put people in thumb locks, it don’t really matter to me as long as you contain that population that I wanted to put in that space for closing first, we want to thank you for coming to the real news and rallying the bars. Tell us about going forward, what you want our listeners and our viewers to be on the lookout for coming out with the critical resistance space.

Woods Ervin:

Yeah, I mean, thanks again so much for having me. And the fight continues. We’ve got four public prisons and one private prison closed. As I said earlier, we’re still going to keep trying to make sure that those prisons that we close don’t get turned into something we don’t want them to get turned into that the money goes where it needs to go. And then we still have five to six additional prisons that we want to get named for closure. And according to legislative analyst office, even though there’s been, as you were saying, the landscape has shifted and there’s more of a sort of tough on crime approach that is gaining popularity in moment, there is still room to close many more prisons in California and just given the amount of people that we’ve been able to get out and that we could potentially still get out and so we’re going to, are going to keep fighting. It would be amazing if we got the 10 prisons, the rest of the name this year. But I definitely think that even if they don’t get named this year, we’re going to fight until we reach our goal.

Mansa Musa:

And I want to close with the immortal words of Bob Marley, get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights. Get up. Stand up. Don’t give up the fight. And I see from what I’m seeing in California, George Jackson say, when the doors open, the real dragon will come out. Well the real dragon is out in the form of critical resistance in the form of curb. The real dragon has come out and make no mistake about y’all are actually showing the nation, when we say abolition, what that look like in terms of the full colony of it. Not just shutting the prison doors but ensuring that the people that’s in prison have a transition. The states and the counties. Well, the counties where the prisons, I have an opportunity to transition from relying on slave labor to looking at expanding your imagination, imagining some other than making money off of people’s sweat and browe.

Woods Ervin:

Thank you so much Mansa for having me. Thank you for being those very big kind words.