By Nora Mishanec, Breaking & Enterprise Reporter
March 31, 2025 (SFChronicle.com)
A rendering of what San Quentin State Prison could look like after a major $239 million renovation intended to turn the prison into a Scandinavian-style rehabilitation center. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
California officials have envisioned a host of sweeping changes for San Quentin State Prison as they attempt to remake the facility into a Scandinavian-style rehabilitation center complete with a farmers market, a podcast production studio and a self-service grocery store.
The renovations are expected to cost California taxpayers $239 million, according to state officials. Construction was on track to finish in January 2026, officials said, with the first incarcerated people set to begin using the revamped facility within months of completion early next year.
The overhaul of what Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has called California’s “most notorious prison” was set in motion shortly after Newsom was elected in 2018. He declared a moratorium on executions, began dismantling Death Row and ordered officials to begin the slow process of transferring San Quentin prisoners to other state facilities. In 2023, he announced plans to turn the entire prison into a Nordic-style center for preparing incarcerated people to reenter life outside prison.
The Newsom administration hired the Danish architecture firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen to help reimagine the maximum-security prison with influences from the Scandinavian incarceration system, where many prisoners live in detention centers designed to approximate life outside prison. Over the past several decades Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have successfully reduced prison populations and recidivism by focusing jail time on preparing incarcerated people for their release back into society.
Architects envisioned a campus where prisoners will have access to so-called normalizing spaces like the self-service grocery store, a café and food trucks staffed by other incarcerated people.
An advisory council that included criminal justice experts and prison reform advocates made dozens of recommendations for the overhaul. Among the suggestions was the idea to “make good nutrition foundational to the San Quentin experience,” through gardening and access to a farmers market with external vendors.
Newsom declined to comment and referred questions to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Pioneered in Norway in the 1990s, the Nordic incarceration model rejected punishment in favor of rehabilitation through work and education. Under this model, San Quentin’s population will shrink by about a third from 3,400 to about 2,400 as prisoners are transferred elsewhere. Those who remain will receive their own rooms with no bunk beds.
“The holistic initiative leverages international, data-backed best practices to improve the well-being of those who live and work at state prisons,” Todd Javernick, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in an email.
But some victims’ advocates and family members of people affected by crime sharply criticized Newsom’s plan, saying any funding spent to transform San Quentin would be better spent on helping victims heal. Criticism has also flowed in from family members of people incarcerated there, who said they fear their loved ones will be moved to facilities in other parts of the state that are far away from spouses and children.
The Newsom administration is hoping the renovated San Quentin will serve as a model for other correctional facilities in the state and country. They’ve dubbed the effort the California Model, with the aim of making prison life less punitive and more humane.
“The initiative’s goal is creating safer communities and a better life for all Californians, by breaking cycles of crime for the incarcerated population, while improving workplace conditions for institution staff,” Javernick said.
In preparation for the overhaul, San Quentin’s security level was reduced from maximum to medium, meaning it will host prisoners deemed to have fewer behavioral issues and who pose a lower escape risk. California prisons have four security levels.
According to the administration, emptying Death Row will also save taxpayers money. The average prisoner in San Quentin costs the state around $60,000 a year, and those on Death Row cost twice that in additional security costs.
Construction on the new facilities is underway and includes three new buildings that will house podcast and television production studios, classrooms for learning to code, a large multipurpose gathering space, a cafe and a store.
Anna Bauman contributed to this report.
Reach Nora Mishanec: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com
March 31, 2025
BREAKING & ENTERPRISE REPORTER
Nora Mishanec is a San Francisco Chronicle breaking news and enterprise reporter. She joined the paper in 2020 as a Hearst fellow and returned in 2022 after a stint at The Houston Chronicle.