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New Digs for Female Convicts

SLO County’s new Women’s Jail got a grand unveiling March 27 and is expected to start housing female inmates this week.
County Sherriff Ian Parkinson invited local media to a preview tour of the nearly $41 million, expanded and modern hoosegow.
With locks that cost about $1,000 each, and an increased jail population after the statewide “realignment” that sent low level offenders to County lock up to serve their sentences, the department needs to cut some costs wherever possible.
Hence the kick-off to the tour, a luncheon prepared with convict labor, served while Chief Deputy Rob Reid presented a history of the project. The chicken stir-fry, salad and rolls may have been a special case, but typical meals produced for and by the inmates cost approximately $1 per plate.
The new jail, code named “Kansas” because of it’s location at the end of Kansas Avenue on what Chief Reid repeatedly referred to as a “postage stamp-sized” property, originally went out for bid in 2005 and took 3 years to construct.
While five firms submitted concepts at the time, Chief Reid said one stood out in the end.
“DMJM didn’t tell us what they thought we wanted to hear,” he said. “They gave us a design for the space we had.” [Daniel Mann Johnson & Mendenhall architects were later bought out by the Los Angeles-based AECOM.] In 2005, the bid was $19 million. With the “Great Recession” in 2008 setting back many projects nationwide, SLO County’s money was suddenly unavailable and funding would have to wait until the State of California made grants accessible to Counties to build facilities in line with Assembly Bill 109, which increased local inmate populations to relieve state prison overcrowding.
AB 900 started a grant program from which SLO County managed to obtain $25.1 million to cover costs. Nearly every county in the state is vying for those funds, but, said Sherriff Parkinson, since SLO County was already in progress with a facility that met standards, they’re among, if not, the first to complete construction.

“Currently, post AB 109 we have one inmate serving 12-years here,” he said, “Previously we had one year at maximum.”
Chief Reid calls the jail, a “Winchester Mystery House” of architectural styles and eras. Although the same color scheme and institutional design is congruent throughout, the men’s jail and central control center share a 1970’s aesthetic.
Subsequent expansions have decades of layered design and technological elements.
Under construction since 2014, “Kansas” replaces the current and aging out women’s facility.
At 36,000 square feet, the new facility quadruples the size of the old one, with inmate capacity designed to outpace current needs.
There are 194 beds and an additional two “safety cells,” and six, padded “rubber rooms.”
Medical isolation cells feature atmospheric control to reduce exposure to the general population, as well as cells with a backdoor that opens directly to the access corridor for ambulance and transport access.
Maximum, medium and honor farm inmates have separate arrangements; although honor farm inmates may integrate into the medium security facility for access to video chat, exercise yard and common facilities.


Among the facility ideas integrated from visits to other states’ facilities are smooth, polished stone, offsetting the lower portion of rough cinder block hallways, proven to be easier on the bodies of inmates and deputies during an altercation, and nicer furniture in the common areas of medium security and honor farm inmates.
Inmates are slated to move into the facility on April 6, with at least a week of drills and testing to make sure the new facility is up to the task. A teardown of the old women’s jail is expected to start April 17, with the option kept open to move back until then should problems arise.

Story and Photos by Camas Frank

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