San Quentin’s stone walls no longer turn blood cold: California’s infamous correctional facility is getting a $239 million makeover, courtesy of California taxpayers, as Governor Gavin Newsom attempts to turn the maximum security prison into a “restorative justice facility.”
The prison that once housed famous inmates such a Charles Manson will now be a Nordic-style rehabilitation center complete with “normalizing spaces” such as a farmer’s market, podcast studios, food trucks, and a self-service grocery store. Construction on the project is now under way, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, and will likely be complete in January 2026.
Scandinavian architecture firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen will lead the remodel. The firm has experience crafting “humane” prisons. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said in a 2024 report to Newsom that proposed reforms will “reduce the harm to residents and staff in our prisons by improving dignity, optimizing humanity, providing incarcerated people the tools they need to become the best versions of themselves before returning home, and creating a work environment that supports rehabilitation.”
Disparate priorities and perspectives were factored heavily into the San Quentin project, of which restorative justice was a central part, the report said. CDCR is excited to offer inmates the new and improved “San Quentin experience.”
Two-person 11′×5′ prison cells will be converted into single occupancy and single-bunk housing (which will require a rather dramatic decrease in the number of prisoners housed at San Quentin. Newsom has already decreased the prison from maximum security to medium security and has shipped former death row inmates to other California prisons.) Prison authorities will also consult design experts for advice on “how to minimize ambient sound and improve light throughout, and to ensure creation of an inclusive design that addresses the needs of different populations including older adults, the differently-abled, and transgender populations (to name a few).” Good nutrition will also be made “foundational” to the San Quentin experience.
Prison reforms aim to “develop a human-centered culture of healing, positive staff-resident communication, and improved living and working conditions.” “In cohesion, these principles will improve public safety, rehabilitation and reentry, as well as outcomes,” CDCR said.
San Quentin is the state’s oldest prison. While certainly outdated, the state’s remodel goes far beyond improving conditions or modernizing facilities: San Quentin is California’s model for progressive prison reform. Newsom zeroed in on San Quentin when he first took office — almost immediately he placed a moratorium on prison executions and began to transfer death row prisoners from San Quentin to other prisons.
Whether the once notorious prison will soon be better described as a “healing environment” than a correctional facility remains to be seen.