California Correctional Institution is a supermaxstate prison located in Cummings Valley, west of the city of Tehachapi in southern California. CCI is sometimes referred to as "Tehachapi prison" or "Tehachapi". As stated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, its overall mission is "to incarcerate and control felons, while providing the opportunity for meaningful work, training and other programs. The prison provides programs for those inmates who are willing to work and participate fully in available programs."
Facilities
CCI has including Level I housing; Level II housing; Level IV housing; a Security Housing Unit ; and a Reception Center which "provides short term housing to process, classify and evaluate incoming inmates." As of March 2012, the facility's total population was 4,753, or 170.8 percent of its design capacity of 2,783.
History
The original California Institution for Women, the first women's facility in California, opened on the site of what is now CCI in 1932. It was sometimes referred to as "Tehachapi", as in the 1940s films Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity. The institution was "run for many years independently from the correctional system for men" but beginning in 1944 was gradually brought under the control of the California Department of Corrections. After the 1952 Kern County earthquake on July 21, "made the brick dormitories unsafe", the institution was closed and the 417 prisoners were sent to the new California Institution for Women in Corona. The prison was reopened in 1954 as CCI, an all-men's prison. In 1985–1986, maximum and medium security facilities were added to it. The Southern Maximum Security Complex at Tehachapi was "touted as the most advanced in the country", but was also "called a 'white elephant' and a 'Cadillac' because it took so long to build and cost so much". Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "directed inmate firefighters and staff from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation", including those from CCI, to help fight the October 2007 California wildfires.
Rafael Pérez was transferred from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood to CCI in July 2001; later that month he was released from CCI and paroled.
Alonza Thomas Jr, focus of a 2014 PBS Frontline documentary entitled Stickup Kid. Sentenced to 13 years at California Correctional Institution for a crime committed as a 15-year-old juvenile.
