SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The infamous San Quentin prison in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to the largest population of death row inmates in the United States, will be transformed to hold fewer inmates who will receive education, training and Rehabilitation, California authorities announced Thursday.
Inmates on death row at San Quentin State Prison will be transferred to other prisons in the California prison system, Governor Gavin Newsom’s office announced, renaming it San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.
The governor is due to visit San Quentin on Friday, which is also the facility where prisoners were once executed, although no one has been subjected to the death penalty since 2006 in California.
Newsom announced a moratorium on executions in 2019 and dismantled the prison’s gas chamber, and in 2022 announced plans to begin transferring death row inmates to other prisons.