Blue tower

Pelican Bay State Prison, Crescent City, California. Some of you commented on my photos of the Air base in Klamath Falls. I accidentally went one better by taking a shot of this California state prison, the state's highest-security, rated a "Supermax." It was kind of impulsive, since I was driving by and happened to know what it was in the first place.

There are loads of photos of it online (inside and outside), Youtube videos and TV documentaries about Pelican Bay. Anyway, a guard came running up to me and informed me I couldn't take pictures, which I can understand in retrospect (oops, too late). Escapes have been aided - not especially at this one - by people on the outside "casing the joint."

California state prisons are heavily populated by gang members of all ethnicities. They are also notorious for excessive use of solitary confinement. Pelican houses the super-violent, and in no way has done rehabilitation until recently in small scale. When I was doing mental health therapy, I had a few Oregon clients who actually had PTSD from having been in California prisons.

I have NO illusions or soft feelings about career criminals, especially violent ones, but nearly all US prisons release people who are more felonious and crazy than when they went in. President Obama and both parties of Congress were making headway in prison reform, but the current regime will turn all progress backward.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Bay_State_Prison