CDCR - Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI)

Important update: Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) in Tracy, San Joaquin County was permanently deactivated on September 30, 2021, after nearly 70 years of operation. DVI was one of California's earliest CDCR facility closures under the state's ongoing consolidation of the prison system driven by declining incarcerated population. The 23500 Kasson Road campus no longer holds incarcerated people, and men who were housed at DVI at closure were transferred to other CDCR institutions. If you have been directed to DVI or found older records listing it as an active reception center for Northern California, your loved one has been transferred, and this guide covers how to find them and the closure context.

DVI's history and the September 2021 closure

Deuel Vocational Institution opened in 1953 with a rehabilitation-oriented mission, initially designed to prepare inmates for reintegration into society through vocational training and structured programming — a hopeful mid-20th-century approach that was pioneering for its era. Over the decades that followed, DVI evolved to serve as a Reception Center processing Northern California prisoners entering the CDCR system from surrounding counties, alongside its ongoing vocational-training role. The Tracy campus in San Joaquin County became a major regional employer and a familiar landmark in the Central Valley.

By 2020, California's prison-population trajectory had shifted enough that CDCR announced DVI would close. Under the state's 2020 multi-year budget plan, which called for closure of a prison to achieve savings amid declining population, DVI was selected based on cost to operate, impact of closure on the workforce, population housing needs, and the state's prioritization of public safety and rehabilitation. Annual operating cost at DVI ran approximately $182 million at closure. The last incarcerated people left DVI at the end of July 2021, and the facility was officially deactivated on September 30, 2021.

Roughly 1,500 inmates were housed at DVI at the time of closure and approximately 1,080 staff worked there. Inmate transfers went to other CDCR reception and general-population institutions, and CDCR worked with affected staff on transfers, retirement, or reassignment. The closure was significant for the Tracy area both economically and as a marker of California's broader prison-system contraction.

Where former DVI inmates went and how to find them

When DVI deactivated, its Reception Center function was absorbed by CDCR's other Northern California reception facilities (including the Sacramento-area processing infrastructure), and its general-population men were transferred to other Level I-II CDCR institutions statewide. To find a loved one who was at DVI, use CDCR's Incarcerated Records and Information Search (CIRIS) at ciris.mt.cdcr.ca.gov. Search by CDCR number if you have it (fastest and most accurate) or by full legal name. The CDCR number itself does not change with a transfer — it follows the person across facilities. AllRecentArrests.us also provides inmate search by name.

Once you have the current institution, look up that facility on cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator for its specific mail PO Box, visiting schedule, and any facility-specific rules. The statewide framework is common across CDCR (Connect Network and JPay for deposits, ViaPath for free phone service under SB 1008, form CDCR 106 for visitor approval, and the VSA at cdcr.gtlvisitme.com/app for scheduling), but each institution has its own unique mail PO Box and visiting-room details.

What happens to family accounts, mail, and visits after DVI closure

Mail sent to DVI's Kasson Road / PO Box 600 address was forwarded for a limited period after closure and has since been returned. If you sent something recently that came back, don't re-send to DVI — find the current institution and re-address the letter to that facility's specific PO Box. Deposits made through Connect Network or JPay followed the inmate to his new institution because balances travel with the CDCR number rather than the facility, so funds sent while your loved one was at DVI are still in his account at the new location. Visitation approval on the visitor list transfers with the inmate, but scheduled visit slots must be re-booked at the new facility through cdcr.gtlvisitme.com/app because slots are facility-specific.

Free ViaPath phone service continues at the new facility under California's SB 1008 (Keep Families Connected Act), and your registered phone number on the inmate's approved calling list remains active for calls from the new facility. If you registered your number specifically for DVI and are unsure whether it carries over, check your ConnectNetwork account settings and confirm the inmate's current facility placement.

California's ongoing prison-consolidation trajectory

DVI's closure was the first major CDCR facility deactivation of the current consolidation era, followed by California Correctional Center in Susanville (2023) and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe (November 2024). CDCR has continued to evaluate additional closures as part of subsequent budget cycles. The state's prison population, which peaked at around 173,000 incarcerated people in 2006, has declined by roughly 40 percent since then due to the 2011 Public Safety Realignment (Assembly Bill 109), Proposition 47 (2014), Proposition 57 (2016) parole reforms, and continued sentencing reform legislation. Additional deactivations may be announced in future budget cycles as the state continues to right-size operational capacity to actual population.

For families of incarcerated people at other CDCR facilities, the closure trajectory has meaningful implications: closer-to-home institutions have gained population as men transfer in from closed remote facilities, some men have been transferred to entirely different regions of the state, and the operational geography of CDCR is quietly reshaping around a smaller footprint. Monitor CDCR announcements and prison-advocacy sources for updates on which institutions may face future closure discussions.

Tracy area and DVI's legacy

The city of Tracy in San Joaquin County had DVI as a major regional employer for nearly 70 years, and the closure had significant economic impact on the community — similar to how the California Correctional Center's later closure affected Susanville. CDCR historical documentation includes photos of DVI's deactivation process on the CDCR Inside blog, and the site's 70-year history spans a substantial arc of California correctional policy from post-war rehabilitation optimism through mass-incarceration expansion and the current consolidation era. If you or your loved one were connected to DVI in any capacity, the historical record of the institution reflects a significant chapter in California correctional history.

What the closure means for someone who was held at DVI

Deuel Vocational Institution was deactivated in September 2021 and no longer holds anyone. If you are looking for a person who was once held here, they were transferred to another institution — there is no one at this address to call, and no visiting schedule to book.

The most important thing to understand is that a closure does not shorten anyone's sentence. The department states plainly that institution closures do not result in early releases; people are moved to other facilities matching their housing and custody needs. So a closure is a change of address, not a change of release date.

Work done inside is not lost either. The department states that all credits earned for self-help, educational and vocational programs at a closed institution transfer with the individual. If your family member completed programming here, that record should follow them — and it is worth confirming with their counsellor at the receiving prison that it actually did, because a transfer is exactly when paperwork goes missing.

To find where someone went, use the department's online inmate locator rather than ringing this facility. A transfer shows up there first, and it is the only authoritative answer. If the search does not find them, the department's Identification Unit can help — have a date of birth ready, especially for a common name.

War Eagle Field, Senator Deuel, and how DVI began

Deuel Vocational Institution opened in 1953. Governor Earl Warren laid the cornerstone of the completed institution on July 6, 1953, and the first incarcerated men arrived on July 20 that year, transferred up from Lancaster.

Before moving to Tracy the institution operated in Lancaster from 1946 to 1953, at War Eagle Field — a site built in 1941 as an overseas training base for British Royal Air Force pilots.

It took its name from state Senator Charles Deuel, whose legislation the year before had established the vocational training mandate the institution was built around.

Until its final years it served as a reception centre, evaluating and processing people admitted to state prison from Northern California. That role is the reason the name turns up so often in older paperwork: a great many people passed through without ever being housed here long-term, so an appearance in a record may reflect nothing more than a few weeks of processing on the way somewhere else.

The legal criteria behind a California prison closure

Closures are not arbitrary. Under section 2067 of the California Penal Code the department weighs a defined set of factors when choosing which institutions to shut: population trends following criminal justice reforms, operating costs and potential savings, the age and condition of the buildings and the cost of repairing them, how close the site is to other facilities, the effect on staff employment and on the local economy, the rehabilitation and reentry programming available, consistency with reform policy, and maintaining public safety through the transfers themselves.

This is not an isolated case. The department has closed a series of institutions over recent years, including Deuel Vocational Institution in 2021, the California Correctional Center in 2023, California City Correctional Facility in 2024 and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in 2024, alongside individual facilities and yards within prisons that remain open, and the California Rehabilitation Center is planned to close by Fall 2026.

After the population leaves, a closed prison enters what the department calls a warm shutdown: buildings are secured, utilities and maintenance continue, and environmental compliance, inspections and documentation are kept up so the property's condition is recorded. The site is not abandoned, and it is not open to the public either — it is held in a maintained state.

For families the practical takeaway is that this name will keep appearing in older records, court paperwork and correspondence for years after the closure. Seeing it does not mean the information is current; it usually means the document predates the transfer.

What records still exist for Deuel Vocational Institution

Closing a prison does not erase its statistical record. The department continues to publish pre-closure reports for this institution, including institution statistics reported under SB 601, operational performance measures known as COMPSTAT and inmate population reports.

These are worth knowing about if you are reconstructing a timeline — confirming when someone was held here, what the conditions and population were at the time, or supporting a claim that depends on how the institution was operating. They are statistical rather than individual, so they will not contain a named person's file; for that you need a records request to the department rather than a published report.

If the inmate locator does not find them

The department's official search tool is the California Incarcerated Records and Information Search, known as CIRIS, at ciris.mt.cdcr.ca.gov. It is updated daily and can be searched by an incarcerated person’s last name or by their CDCR number.

If the search does not find the person you are looking for, the department's Identification Unit can be reached on (916) 445-6713, Monday through Friday excluding holidays, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A date of birth is required if the name is a common one — having it ready, along with any spelling variations, is usually the difference between a useful call and being told there is no record.

For a complaint that the institution has not resolved, the department operates an Office of the Ombudsman, which sits outside the individual prison's chain of command. It is the right route once the facility's own grievance process has been tried and has not produced an answer — not a substitute for it.

Your first steps if you're trying to reach someone who was at DVI

Focus first on the essentials:

• Search CIRIS at ciris.mt.cdcr.ca.gov by CDCR number or name to find the current institution.
• Alternatively, search by name on AllRecentArrests.us.
• Look up the current facility's mail PO Box and rules at cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator.
• Existing Connect Network and JPay balances follow the inmate — funds are not lost.
• Visitor approval on the visitor list transfers; re-book VSA slots at the new facility at cdcr.gtlvisitme.com/app.
• Free ViaPath calls under SB 1008 continue; registered phone numbers on the calling list remain active.

Our overviews of how to find someone in jail or prison, how to send money to an inmate, and how to send mail to an inmate cover the general CDCR family-facing procedures at whichever institution your loved one is now at.

DVI's role in California correctional history and post-closure legacy

Deuel Vocational Institution's nearly 70-year operating history spans a significant arc of California correctional policy — from the post-war rehabilitation-optimism era of the 1950s that shaped DVI's founding vocational-training mission, through the mass-incarceration expansion of the 1980s and 1990s that reshaped the state's prison population, to the current consolidation era driven by declining population under the 2011 realignment and subsequent sentencing reforms. The Tracy campus itself remains state property post-deactivation, and future uses of the site have been discussed in various forums over the years since 2021. If you have historical connections to DVI — as a former inmate, family member, staff member, or programming volunteer — the CDCR Inside blog has documented the deactivation with photos and interviews that capture the closure as a marker of California correctional history.

Historical CDCR context for former DVI inmates and their families

For families whose loved ones served time at DVI over the decades of the facility's operation, the closure represents both an institutional and a personal chapter closing. Many older CDCR records still reference DVI as a placement or reception-center processing point, and if you are working on post-conviction records requests, expungement petitions (in the small subset of California cases where relief is available), or any other retrospective processes that reference DVI custody history, the facility's records were transferred to CDCR's central records infrastructure at closure. Requests for older records should route through CDCR's standard records-request process rather than to a defunct facility address.

Final CDCR records-request considerations

If you need records related to your loved one's time at DVI — classification files, program-completion certificates, medical or mental-health records, or disciplinary documentation — submit a written records request through CDCR's central records infrastructure rather than to the deactivated facility address. Response times vary based on record type and volume. Keep copies of your request and any responses for follow-up if the records are incomplete or need to accompany a post-conviction relief filing.