The goal is to turn it into a site where inmates can be rehabilitated and receive job training before returning to society. The state hasn't executed inmates for years, and the Democratic governor issued a moratorium on the death penalty in 2019.
Victim's right advocates were quick to react. "He seems to have completely forgotten the victims, I mean I think this is affront to the victims because we're saying at least there is still an element of punishment and accountability that should happen in state prison before you get your chance to earn your way out," Nina Salarno Besselman of Crime Victims United said.
"When you're there, the goal is to ensure you do not come back and right now, what we have is not working," Jay Jordan of Alliance for Safety and Justice said. At the overhauled San Quentin, vocational training programs would set people up to land good-paying jobs as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers after they're released,A group made up public safety experts, crime victims and formerly incarcerated people will advise the state on the transformation. Newsom is allocating $20 million to launch the plan.
Meanwhile Taina Vargas, executive director of Initiate Justice Action, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles, said she is pleased the state is moving toward rehabilitating incarcerated people but more drastic changes are needed to transform the criminal justice system that imprisons so many people. But Californians have also supported easing certain criminal penalties in an attempt to reduce mass incarceration as part of a more recent movement away from tough-on-crime policies that once dominated the state.
The prison has housed high-profile criminals such as cult leader Charles Manson, convicted murderers and serial killers, and was the site of violent uprisings in the 1960s and 1970s.
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