California complies with a federal order and breaks ground on a new prisoner medical facility.
As many as 1,700 California prisoners that get seriously sick or injured will soon have new a treatment facility. Construction has started for the almost $1 billion prisoner health care center in Stockton.
The inmate medical facility is being built on an old youth correctional camp. The ground breaking took place on Thursday, with a heavy duty backhoe tearing down a wall near the old basketball courts.
“The wall was part of our existing complex built decades ago, that has been out of use for over 10 years,” said Matt Kate.
Kate is the secretary of the department of corrections and rehabilitation.
“It’s a chance to use existing state land to build something we really need, which are clinical beds for our most medically ill inmates."
The 1.2 million square-foot facility will have a diagnostic care and treatment center, and will care for inmates needing physical or mental health care. The medical center was approved by lawmakers in 2007, after a federal court order required the state to improve health treatments and overcrowding in prisons.
