OpenStreetMap (new tab)

Google Map (new tab)

Google Streetview (new tab)

Opening in 1989, Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) was designed, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, to "house California's most serious criminal offenders in a secure, safe, and disciplined institutional setting." It was divided into two basic divisions, one for maximum security prisoners in a general population setting and the other a Security Housing Unit (SHU), where problem prisoners can be housed in isolation. As part of the SHU operation, the prison has a Psychiatric Services Unit (PSU), a 127-bed unit to house mentally ill SHU prisoners, and a Transitional Housing Unit (THU), a 40-bed setting where prisoners are staged for return to the general population. The prison also maintains a 400-bed Level I Minimum Support Facility outside the maximum security prison's perimeter. This area also has a fire house staffed by 8 inmate fire fighters. (See http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Visitors/Facilities/PBSP.html Accessed 04/10/2009)

Pelican Bay State Prison occupies 275 acres and cost $218 million to construct;

PCAD id: 819