| Prison Name: | California State Prison, Centinela (CEN) |
| Location: | Imperial County, California |
| Coordinates: | 32.823°N -115.789°W |
| Status: | Operational |
| Classification: | Minimum-Maximum |
| Capacity: | 2,308 |
| Population: | 2,773 (120.1% capacity) |
| Populationdate: | January 31, 2023[1] |
| Opened: | October 1993 |
| Managed By: | California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation |
| Warden: | Raymond Madden[2] |
California State Prison, Centinela (CEN) is a male-only state prison located in Imperial County, California, approximately from Imperial and El Centro.[3] The facility is sometimes referenced Centinela State Prison.[4]
CEN is situated on .[4] Of its housing units, 1 Level IV GP, 2 Level III GP, 1 Level III SNY yards ("5 two tier buildings on each yard, 100 Double occupancy cells per building, razor wire cinder block/ chain link fenced perimeters and armed coverage") all surrounded by an additional electrified fence protected by two razor wire atop chain link fences and 1 Level I yard (2 buildings, open dormitory, maximum capacity of 200 inmates each, with secure chain link fence perimeter). Facility also includes a "CTC" ("Correctional Treatment Center", treating medical, dental, and mental health issues with an integrated hospital type area/ department)."ADSEG" (administrative segregation) has a maximum occupancy of 175, and a Firehouse (Centinela Fire Department, CEP is the three letter identifier) that houses 8 Level I inmates actively trained as structural/ wildland firefighters. Centinela Fire Department is part of the institutions rehabilitation program. It provides rigorous and accelerated training meeting state fire certification, equivalent to a volunteer structural/ wildland firefighter. A library facility was established in 2016.[4] [5]
As of Fiscal Year 2007/2008, CEN had a total of 1,266 staff and an annual institutional operating budget of $161 million.[4] As of December 2008, it had a design capacity of 2,383 but a total institution population of 5,097, for an occupancy rate of 213% percent.[6]
As of April 30, 2020, CEN was incarcerating people at 142.3% of its design capacity, with 3,284 occupants.[7]
CEN was named after Cerro Centinela, the Spanish name for Mount Signal which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. The prison opened in October 1993,[4] approximately 22 months after Calipatria State Prison located approximately north.[4]
A 1994 statute "require[d] the U.S. attorney general either to agree to compensate a state for incarcerating an illegal immigrant or to take the undocumented criminal into federal custody."[8] In January 1996, the administration of Governor Pete Wilson "tested the law" by asking Immigration and Naturalization Service agents "to take custody of a 25-year-old illegal immigrant serving time in Centinela State Prison for drug offenses"; however, the agents refused.[8] Therefore, in March 1996 Wilson sued the federal government to enforce the 1994 law.[8]
As of 1997, CEN was the "most overcrowded prison in the state" as it ran at "259 percent of designed capacity."[9] By 2007, however, Avenal State Prison was the California state prison system's "most overcrowded facility."[10]
In August 2006, a quadriplegic inmate died after the air conditioning failed in a van carrying him and another inmate from California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran to CEN.[11] According to a reporter's summary of statements by "the federal official now in control of medical care in the state's prison system," the death was "proof of a broken system"; according to the reporter's summary of statements by representatives of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the death was "a terrible event caused by happenstance."[11]