MARIN COUNTY (KRON) — San Quentin sits in Marin County, on the banks of the San Francisco Bay.
Behind the 22-foot high walls are hundreds of the state’s worst offenders.
The prison is filling up fast. And the Department of Corrections is running out of room to house these inmates.
So, KRON’s Alecia Reid took a look at the future of the prison, and what is being done to keep these criminals locked up.
San Quentin is home to the largest death row population in the country. And there hasn’t been an execution there since 2006.
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There are hundreds of inmates who will likely spend the rest of their lives awaiting execution. Now, the prison is trying to figure out where to put them all.
Doing time isn’t easy.
Some inmates in their 80s have been on death row for decades. For those in their 20s, their prison bid is just starting.
Most inmates spend an average of 15 years on this notorious cellblock. Some of the condemned are holding out hope a retrial or appeal will set them free.
One inmate waiting for a new lawyer is Michael Santos Walters.
“I don’t even have an attorney yet. It takes like five or six years to get an attorney,” he said.
He is serving life, for murder.
“A gang member that was raping my niece,” Walters said.
Now, he is condemned to death for brutally killing his cellmate.
“While incarcerating in Corcoran, I killed my celly that was a pedophile,” Walters said.
Walters is just one of hundreds of condemned inmates living in cramped conditions.
“What people need to understand is that the conditions here are horrible,” inmate Tupoutoe Mataele said.
Death row’s East Block is nearly at capacity. The prison is running out of room.
But there’s some relief in the psych ward.
There are 40 extra beds for mentally ill condemned inmates, but still, it is not enough.
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The state is providing some aid–$3.2 million dollars of taxpayer funds to make room for 97 beds in the Donner Building, which currently needs to be retrofitted in order to house some of the overflow.
It is a small dent in an overcrowding problem that appears to be getting worse.
Of course with that conversion, more staff will need to be hired and trained.
Construction is expected to be completed sometime in February.