The city has two separate correctional facilities in the northernmost part of the city. The first and oldest prison is Soledad CTF (Correctional Training Facility) built in 1946. It was also one of the first 12 prisons of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The other one is Salinas Valley State Prison, which opened in 1996.
Of note from the Wiki article:
In a 2013 Safe Cities report, Soledad was rated California’s 11th Safest City. Soledad was highly regarded for its sense of community and high amount of volunteerism.
I don’t think so. The particular “Don’t pick up hitchhikers” sign I saw is way farther south than that, in the vicinity of Camp Roberts, at the far south end of Monterey County, well south of King City. That’s really nowhere near Soledad, which is north of King City.
Not a prison, but the Arlington County (VA) jail is smack-dab in the downtown core, and isn’t an eyesore at all - looks like an office building, by design.http://sheriff.arlingtonva.us/detention-facility/. And this neighborhood is considered pretty desirable - good Metro access, good restaurants and bars nearby, trendy apartments, etc.
Yah, that is probably not Soledad. Maybe Camp Roberts uses some of the prisoners from time to time as labor.
Related to the OP - I mentioned Folsom Prison earlier. In Wikipedia it states this about crime in Folsom:
Folsom experiences a very low crime rate, a majority of which are property crimes. The FBI’s Uniformed Crime Report consistently shows Folsom as one of the lowest crime rates in the State of California.
Also related to the OP, wasn’t is also Carlin that said we should build housing for deaf people near airports, and housing for blind people near cemetaries?
We lived one town over from MCI Concord, a medium security prison in Concord MA. There were a handful of escapes who did exactly that, but they came to our town on foot and stole the cars there rather than attempt to steal a car right next to the prison. But I haven’t heard of any escapes from there in recent years, although prisoners may have walked away from “the Farm”, a lower security unit next door.
In Milwaukee the jail and the prison (QtM can provide the technical names for them) are right next door to each other. They’re right in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. If you didn’t know what they were or see the small sign out front, you wouldn’t even know that’s what they were. They just look like office buildings (with really small windows). There’s no reason to feel unsafe around them. There’s another correctional facility on the outskirts of town, and again, no reason to feel unsafe near it either.
The ‘bad part of town’ starts a few miles away from the downtown facilities, but it has nothing to do with them.
In the jail/prison neighborhood, I’d be more worried for my safety walking around near the courthouse.
What I’ve heard from people living in prison towns is it’s not the prisoners (escapes are relatively rare things, and they just want to get out of town when they do escape - usually with an outside accomplice rather than via carjacking), it’s not even families of prisoners relocating to live there (most don’t). It’s the families and friends as visitors. Your physical safety is probably OK in these towns, but petty crime rates go up, so shoplifting, burglary etc.
Thanks for the replies and links to specific sites. I thought about the carjacking issue, but then it would be trivially easy to get someone on the outside to pick you up and GTFO ASAP rather than risk recapture trying to steal a car ad-hoc.
I suppose that would make sense. Your friends come to see you and they stop steal a couple of packs of cigarettes from the gas station when they leave or snatch a purse from an old lady in the parking garage at the mall on their way out of town.
I had some friends in a neighboring town that lived right outside a prison. No problems, but they really didn’t like that the watchtower could practically see right into their bedroom window.
I’d expect prisons to be out in the boondocks, if for no other reason than for the cheapo real estate prices. It surprises me that prisons are in cities, and especially in areas that would seem to be prime choice real estate (see: San Quentin discussion, above), for this reason alone.
Indeed; I grew up within a mile of Folsom State Prison (just across the American River). Close enough to hear the lunch siren. Perfectly ordinary upscale suburb. Generally better than the surrounding areas, in fact; probably helped by the lake and the Intel campus.
Like so many other things (airports, etc.), the prison comes first and the people later. Folsom State Prison opened in 1880. I don’t know what the population of Folsom was then, but obviously it was nowhere close to the 70k it is today. It was the boondocks then.
In Jefferson City Missouri they closed the old prison about 5 years ago which did sit right in the city.
One interesting thing - when they used to execute someone by gas. They would close the street around the prison and downwind so the gas wouldnt kill any bystanders.
Somewhat related: I remember reading about 18th century public hangings in England which drew large crowds and also attracted pickpockets. This despite the fact that at the time, pickpocketing was punishable by death.
My office is across the street from the County justice center which includes a long-term prison. The kind of place for lifers and such. It’s never been a problem as far as I know. Good security I guess. Also, people are surprised if I tell them it’s a prison. They just don’t expect it and there’s no barbed wire fencing or anything. Just no large windows on the prison part.
My parents lived 70 years in a town with a large prison. It was always a very quiet and peaceful town, up until about the 1990s. Then they started having problems with people arriving for visiting day. There were an increasing number of daytime B&E type crimes, from visitors who saw an opportunity while they were in town for a few hours. In addition, there were a few families that moved into town just to be close to their convicted husband for visiting day, and they sometimes turned out t be of rather uneven morals.
My parents got the point they actually started having to lock their house and take the keys out of the ignition of their parked cars, which they had never had to do before.
