The seven-story building houses hundreds of inmates, including 46-year-old Andrew Griffith, who will likely be there until his 2018 release. Prison officials once boasted of Italian marble floors and lavish chandeliers, but in 2001 that building closed because of structural issues.įacility A adjoins the old hotel. The Norconian building has retained much of its glamorous appeal, with ornate wrought-iron balconies and a terracotta roof. In 1962, drug offenders were admitted to the new prison. Naval hospital during World War II and and the Korean War. The once-luxurious Norconian hotel is a hilltop Spanish-style castle fit for a Disney set.Ĭompleted in 1923, the Norconian enjoyed a short term of prosperity before closing in 1940. “This time, I think there might be some validity to what they’re saying.” “As long as I’ve been at this institution, they’ve warned we were in some phase of closing,” she said. The prison’s unclear future is nothing new for Tampkins, who started there 29 years ago as a corrections officer. State corrections spokesman Bill Sessa said that, as one of California’s oldest prisons, Norco’s “age and condition” make it one of the most inefficient to run. In January, the state is expected to decide the Norco prison’s fate. But in 2013, a Senate bill halted its closure, mainly due to concerns about meeting a court-ordered prison populations cap. The state commissioned three new dorms at prisons across California, worth a combined $810 million, to replace the aging prison. Jerry Brown called for the Norco prison to be shut by 2016. It’s not the first time someone has mentioned closing the former luxury hotel-turned prison. Loni Hancock’s May letter to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calling for closure of the “dilapidated” penitentiary plagued by rodent and cockroach “infestations.” The holes in this bathroom’s ceiling were one of several concerns in state Sen. Another shirtless inmate exits the bathroom with a towel draped across his shoulders, wiping vestiges of shaving cream off his bald head.
NORCO STATE PRISON WINDOWS
Natural light streams in from windows on both sides of a dorm in Facility A, the oldest part of the prison.Ī man with a tattooed chest and neck is tidying his bed. It’s just after noon inside the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco.
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