First Diablo. Then Oceano Dunes SVRA. What happens if the California Men’s Colony closes too?

First of all, the good news: The state’s inmate population is shrinking.

Next, more good news: That has the potential to save the state of California billions of dollars.

But it also means some communities like San Luis Obispo could see their prisons close, and thousands of relatively high-paying jobs would be lost. (Correctional officers earn between $55,920 and $93,384 a year in base pay, plus substantial benefits.)

If CMC were to close — still very much a big if, at this point — it would be the third major institutional change to rock San Luis Obispo County over a relatively short period of time.

First, we have the closing of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant beginning in 2024, which is now a certainty.

Next, there’s the decision to close the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area in 2023 and transition it to more passive, environmentally friendly uses. That, too, is a done deal as far as the state is concerned, though it’s being challenged in court.

Finally, if CMC were to close by 2025, 1,800 jobs would be lost.

And all this would occur on the heels of the economic fall-out from COVID-19.

On paper, it looks like a cascade of economic hits, but the reality may not be quite so severe.

For one thing, jobs and revenue associated with the loss of Diablo Canyon and closure of the SVRA won’t completely disappear.

Diablo Canyon will have to be decommissioned, and that will generate employment over “multiple decades,” according to PG&E. Plus, there are plans to redevelop the Diablo Canyon property into a clean energy hub.

When the OHV park closes — and again, that’s tangled up in litigation — the Oceano Dunes will continue to draw tourists and generate customers for local businesses, though the mix of businesses will likely change.

One more thing: Due to the upcoming closure of Diablo Canyon, there already is a long-term planning effort in place to recruit high-paying industries to the region.

However remote, the possibility that CMC could close still raises questions:

Would there be financial aid to help the community recover from the economic loss, as there was with Diablo Canyon?

What would happen to the sprawling property off Highway 1?

Would the state pull out completely, or could the facility be converted into a training and rehabilitation center — maybe a camp for inmate firefighters?

Or would it be a repeat of what happened with the state-run Paso Robles boys’ school, which has sat empty since 2008 while the buildings deteriorate?

And would the community have plenty of time prepare, as it has with Diablo Canyon?

Why are prison closures being considered now?

Not that long ago, the state was under a federal court order to ease prison overcrowding and as a result, some inmates now serve their in county jails, rather than prisons.

Since then, the prison population has fallen due to a combination of factors: a decrease in crime; changes in sentencing rules; and release of prisoners due to COVID-19, which hit prisons particularly hard.

It’s not just happening in California; this a nationwide phenomenon. The population behind bars has dropped 14%, from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million by mid-2020, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

That’s a promising trend. We were putting way too many people behind bars for inordinate periods of time with legislation like California’s three strikes law.

A disproportionate number of inmates are Black and people of color. According to the Pew Research Center, there were 1,501 Black inmates per 100,000 adults in U.S. prisons in 2018, compared to 797 Hispanic inmates and 268 white inmates.

If that’s not argument enough that we need to reform the prison system, consider the economics: It costs an average of $81,203 per year to house an inmate in a California prison. By comparison it costs $74,570 to attend Stanford University for a year without financial aid.

Money has been funneled to prisons that could have been going to education, health care, social services and housing. There’s already a bill in the Legislature to dedicate a portion of the savings to re-entry housing for former inmates.

Why CMC?

As an older prison that has “generally exceeded its expected useful life,” the California Men’s Colony is one of a dozen institutions on the state’s watch list.

CMC is in need of $1.5 billion in upgrades — second only the San Quentin, where the estimate is $1.6 billion.

Certainly, there should be a cost/benefit analysis that looks at which aging facilities are worth saving, because as painful as it is to see a major employer move out, that can’t be the first consideration here.

If shutting down prisons can save the state billions of dollars, we shouldn’t be clamoring to keep them open at any cost, especially if it means more money to invest in programs that can contribute to keeping people out of prison in the first place.

But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about making these decisions, and so far, it appears the state has made a mess of it.

Lack of notice

Two of the state’s 34 prisons already are scheduled to close, one in Tracy and another in Susanville, located in Lassen County.

Elected leaders in Lassen County complained they had no advance warning of that decision, which was announced this month.

“The lack of transparency and opportunity for public input in making such a significant decision is abhorrent,” Assemblywoman Megan Dahle and her husband, Sen. Brian Dahle, said in a statement.

The two Republican lawmakers accused the state of making the decision through “secretive channels” and vowed to uncover how the administration arrived at its conclusion.

Staci Heaton, acting vice president for governmental affairs with Rural County Representatives of California, said that should serve warning to other small counties.

“We’d be crazy not to worry that there will be more closures in rural areas,” she said.

Let’s hope that puts the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on notice.

Communities like San Luis Obispo have every right to be kept in the loop and given the opportunity to provide input.

And if and when a decision is made to shutter a prison, there also should be plenty of lead time and a plan to aid in the community’s economic recovery from job losses.

Keeping people behind bars primarily to save jobs is not a reasonable goal; if there’s evidence that the current decline in inmate population isn’t a momentary fluke but rather a lasting trend, California should consider closing additional prisons

But the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation must make the decision-making process deliberate, transparent — and include the community at every step.