Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Which prison/jail is a convicted person sent to?

In any prison or jail system, incoming inmates undergo a process of "classification" in which they are assessed based on their criminal history, health needs, mental state, and many other factors, this determines what facility the inmate will be housed in. In CA this takes place at an Inmate Reception Center, e.g. at Cal Inst. for Men in Chino. In the Federal system a judge can make a nonbinding recommendation and a lawyer has written a Zagat guide, if you will, to the least bad Club Fed and how you get housed there.

Re: Which prison/jail is a convicted person sent to?

Whether the inmate goes to state or federal prison depends only upon whether he is convicted and sentenced by a state or federal court.

Each state has its own procedures for handling new inmates, and California's is the only one I know well enough to describe.

The first thing you should know is that the judge has essentially no say in where the inmate serves his time. The California Department of Corrections (CDC) takes custody of those sentenced to a year or more behind bars. Those with shorter sentences are sent to jail of the county in which they were convicted.

As Mr. Stone notes, CDC inmates are first sent to a reception center. His answer may suggest that all men are sent to the same place, but there is at least one other reception center where many begin their prison terms.

After they are processed (which can take months) CDC assigns each inmate to a particular prison based primarily upon the level of security he requires. Aside from those sentenced to death, CDC assigns each inmate one of four levels of security and then transfers them to a facility equipped to house inmates at that level.

CDC's 172,000 inmates are held in 33 adult prisons, 13 adult community correctional facilities, and eight juvenile facilities. Some are designed for only one level of security, while others can house inmates at different security levels in different areas. There are multiple prisons at each security level, and which one an inmate goes to is pretty much up to the discretion of the corrections department. Inmates are often moved from one facility to another when the department deems such moves prudent. Counties with more than one jail do pretty much the same thing with their inmates.

As I mentioned earlier, there are different rules for death row inmates. All men sentenced to death in California are held in San Quentin State Prison on the san Francisco bay while condemned women are housed at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. These inmates don't go through reception and are instead transferred directly to death row upon sentencing. There are currently 560 men and 14 women on death row in this state.