High-Impact Grant Proposal
Adult Facilities Program Design: California Board of State and Community Corrections, $70,000,000
For this project, we developed a “whole system” design for rehabilitative programming in an urban, high-security jail. As a component of this project, we also led the development of a comprehensive jail needs assessment and wrote the project’s $70 million proposal for state funding, the most highly-rated proposal in the state of California.
Client
Sheriff’s Office
Amounts and Funding Sources
$70 million construction grant, California State SB 844 Funds
Purpose
With this state funding, Contra Costa County will replace 420 beds in an overcrowded and derelict facility by constructing what will be one of the most progressive high-security local jail facilities in the nation. Based on Transition from Jail to Community principles, this whole-system reform project will include a child-friendly Child/Parent Contact Visitation Center and Program; a Rehabilitation and Reentry Services Center; a Workforce Readiness Center; a Program and Administration Suite; a Medical/Psychiatric Services clinic; acute and step-down mental health units and services; and in-pod educational and group rooms. All facilities are designed to foster ready access to programming, participation-related classification incentives, and continual assessment and planning for transition, reentry, and post-release support.
Working on a two-month timeline, we developed a “whole system” program design and wrote the most highly rated proposal in the State of California. Serving as the project’s subject matter experts, we worked closely with project architects to ensure that facilities design reflects programmatic intent, operations, and principles; consulted national experts in custodial programming to embed rehabilitative approaches throughout; and partnered with a national design firm to undertake a comprehensive jail needs assessment to ensure data-driven decision-making. In the end, we produced the winning $70 million proposal, which was the highest ranked in the state of California.
