By Vanguard Staff
SACRAMENTO — Advocates are praising the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s decision to close the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) in Norco by fall 2026, calling it a fiscally responsible move that reflects the state’s shrinking prison population and shifting priorities.
“We applaud Governor Newsom’s decision to spare precious state resources by closing the state prison at Norco, a decision that will save taxpayers more than a billion dollars in capital improvement costs,” said Anne Irwin, founder and director of Smart Justice California.
“Governor Newsom’s decision to close one of the state’s costliest prisons is the right resource reallocation at the right time,” Irwin said. “During a time when Californian’s leaders are scrambling to backfill funding for essential programs threatened by the disastrous Federal Republican budget cuts, this prison closure is precisely the spending reprioritization the state needs.”
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) formally announced the closure Monday, stating that it will deactivate CRC by fall 2026 in line with directives in the state’s 2025–26 budget. The agency projects that the closure will save approximately $150 million in annual General Fund spending.
CRC Norco would have required $1.1 billion in capital improvements to remain habitable, in addition to high annual operating costs. Smart Justice California called the prison “the most costly California prison to keep open by far.”
“Closing CRC Norco will prevent California from pouring more than a billion taxpayer dollars into rehabilitating an aging prison, allowing the legislature to put their collective energy behind state-level funding solutions that support crucial safety net programs and community safety for all Californians,” Irwin said.
Irwin credited public safety advocates—many of them formerly incarcerated—for leading the push to resize California’s prison system.
The adult prison population in California has declined significantly in recent years. CDCR reports the current population at approximately 91,000, down from more than 173,000 in 2006 and the lowest level since the late 1980s.
The decline has allowed CDCR to close Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, California Correctional Center in Susanville, and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe. CDCR has also deactivated 11 facilities, parts of two others, and 42 housing units across 11 prisons.
Combined, these deactivations and closures—along with administrative reductions—have resulted in hundreds of millions in savings.
CRC currently houses about 2,766 incarcerated individuals and employs 1,191 staff. It is classified as a Level II medium-security facility.
Opened in 1928 as the Lake Norconian Club, a luxury resort hotel, the facility was converted into a Naval hospital in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was donated to the state in 1962 for use as a narcotics center and began housing incarcerated people in the 1980s.
CDCR said it will work to mitigate the impact of the closure on staff, volunteers, and incarcerated people, and will implement an economic resiliency plan to support the local community and workforce.
The closure comes amid an $11.8 billion state budget shortfall worsened by federal funding cuts and economic effects of President Trump’s tariff policies. Advocates see the closure as a smart and necessary step to preserve public safety investments.
Norco officials have publicly supported the prison’s closure, incorporating it into the city’s legislative platform and receiving backing from local lawmakers. In 2021, California United for a Responsible Budget named CRC Norco a top candidate for closure based on a survey of more than 2,000 incarcerated people.
