The aging Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore will temporarily close to undergo renovations, transferring its 303 inmates to other jails across San Bernardino County and reassigning its staff, the Sheriff’s Department announced Tuesday, Aug. 6.
The closure will occur over the next several months, but sheriff’s officials would not disclose a precise date because of safety concerns.
Inmates and staff are expected to largely be relocated to the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, which opened in 2006, was expanded in February 2014 and is adding 353 jail beds under the third phase of its construction, officials said.
“The reassignment of staff will allow the department to completely open all housing units at HDDC,” according to a Sheriff’s Department news release. “With the county-funded staffing at HDDC, the department will be able to offer a more robust mental health and medical services to a higher acuity inmate.”
Sheriff’s spokesperson Gloria Huerta said in an email that the closure will not affect Glen Helen’s vocational programs, including the culinary and baking program in which inmates can obtain food handler’s certificates to help them get jobs in the food service industry upon their release from custody. Nor will the closure affect the jail’s work release program, Huerta said.
Just as its name implies, the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center is an institution tailored to rehabilitate inmates and provide them essential life skills, offering both court-ordered and voluntary academic, vocational and cognitive classes, 12-step programs, crisis counseling and religious services, according to the jail’s webpage.
Additionally, in response to California prison realignment that took effect in October 2011, the Sheriff’s Department partnered with the San Bernardino County Fire Department in 2013 to launch an inmate firefighter pilot program at the jail, and opened an 8-acre inmate fire camp.
Huerta also said the jail closure will not create overcrowding problems at any of the county’s other jails.
“Our daily inmate population in all our jails is below what is needed to redistribute the inmates,” Huerta said in an email. “This will not cause overcrowding and we will still have bed space available for new arrests.”
The 74-year-old Glen Helen opened in 1960, first operating as a work camp for men while also housing the sheriff’s training academy before it later moved to a site just north of the jail. The women’s facility opened in 1988, and the maximum security unit was added in 2003.
Glen Helen, according to its website, has an inmate capacity of 1,446 and averages about 800 male and female total inmates daily. But as of Tuesday, the jail was only housing 303 inmates, according to the Sheriff’s Department. It was not immediately clear why the jail was housing less than half of its average daily inmate population.
“It’s a really old facility, and the fact they want to renovate it does make some sense,” said Donald Specter, a senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, a nonprofit advocating for prisoner civil rights.
Glen Helen, according to the Sheriff’s Department, ultimately will reopen as “a future re-entry facility for the entire corrections system,” helping inmates transition from jail back into the community. The renovations will cost $10 million and come from capital improvement funds, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
“These are exciting times within the corrections bureau of the Sheriff’s Department. I couldn’t be more proud of the staff and their innovative ideas to take us into the future and provide the best re-entry experience for our incarcerated people returning to the community,” Sheriff Shannon D. Dicus said in the release.
Although the news release said the Board of Supervisors approved the third and final phase of the High Desert Detention Center in July, there was no indication of that on agendas from the board’s two regular meetings in July, nor on a July 30 special meeting agenda.
“The county is seeking clarification from the sheriff,” county spokesperson David Wert said Tuesday.
Supervisor Joe Baca Jr., whose district includes Glen Helen, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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Glen Helen has had a few incidents of drug smuggling and inmate escapes over the years. In January, a sheriff’s sweep at the jail involving drug-detecting canines turned up “weapons and dangerous contraband,” as well as several pieces of mail containing drugs that had been mailed to inmates, according to a sheriff’s news release.
Despite those problems, Glen Helen often has been referred to as “Camp Snoopy” because inmates “are just waiting out their time until they can go home,” said a sheriff’s deputy who spoke on condition of anonymity.
During an unannounced inspection at the jail in June 2023 by the California Board of State and Community Corrections, the agency found Glen Helen to be in compliance with Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations, which sets minimum standards for detention facilities, according to a letter the agency sent to Sheriff Dicus dated July 17, 2023.
In September 2023, the BSCC, which oversees jails statewide, did a two-day comprehensive inspection at Glen Helen and also found it in compliance with all Title 15 regulations, according to a letter from the BSCC to Dicus dated Dec. 15, 2023.
