CDCR - High Desert State Prison (HDSP)

High Desert State Prison (HDSP) sits at 475-750 Rice Canyon Road just outside Susanville in Lassen County, one of the most remote outposts in the California prison system. Opened in August 1995 with a design capacity of 2,324 men, HDSP has held between 2,300 and more than 3,000 people at different points in its history and is one of CDCR's designated Level IV maximum-security men's institutions. For families of anyone housed here, the twin realities that shape everything are the drive — roughly 175 miles from Sacramento and more than 250 miles from the San Francisco Bay Area — and the fact that in 2023, the neighboring California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville permanently closed, leaving HDSP as the sole state prison in the region and the anchor of local employment. This guide is written for the person on the other end of that drive: what to know about visits, mail, deposits, phone calls, court and release, and how to stay steady when a loved one is at High Desert.

About High Desert State Prison and its Susanville setting

HDSP was activated in 1995 during a wave of new prison construction in Northern California and was built alongside the older California Correctional Center (CCC) on the same corridor of Rice Canyon Road. For nearly three decades the two prisons formed a paired complex that dominated the Susanville economy. In 2023 CDCR permanently deactivated CCC as part of statewide capacity reductions driven by California's declining prison population and litigation over conditions. That closure meaningfully shifted local operations: HDSP absorbed some CCC functions, staffing patterns changed, and the town of Susanville — the subject of the 2007 PBS documentary Prison Town, USA — lost hundreds of jobs. For families, the practical takeaway is that HDSP is now the region's sole active state prison, so the drive up is only worth it if that is where your loved one actually is; confirm through CIRIS or on AllRecentArrests.us before you go.

HDSP houses primarily Level IV maximum-security men in celled housing across several facility yards, plus a Level I minimum-support satellite yard that provides labor and lower-custody beds. Level IV is CDCR's highest general-population security designation — celled housing, tighter movement control, and heavier custody oversight than at Level I, II, or III prisons. The prison has had a rocky operational history: a 2015 California Office of the Inspector General report documented what it called "a perception of insularity and indifference to inmates" and noted rapid warden turnover (seven wardens in eight years) along with concerns about staff-culture issues. Families should factor that context in when evaluating how a report or complaint may be received.

Visitation at HDSP: weekends and holidays through the VSA

Visits at HDSP are held on Saturdays, Sundays, and observed holidays from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Every visit must be scheduled in advance through CDCR's Visitor Scheduling Application (VSA) at cdcr.gtlvisitme.com/app — walk-in visits are turned away. Depending on the incarcerated person's custody status, visits at HDSP may be contact (in a shared visiting room) or non-contact (through a partition); Level IV placement often draws non-contact until specific milestones are met.

Before you can schedule anything, you must be approved on your loved one's visitor list. That process starts inside the prison: the incarcerated person requests CDCR Form 106 (Visitor Questionnaire), mails it to you, and you complete and return it for a background check. Approval typically takes several weeks. Once approved, you register with the VSA using the CDCR number, pick a slot several days ahead of your intended weekend, and receive an emailed confirmation. Bring a valid unexpired government-issued photo ID, dress within CDCR's visiting rules (no clothing resembling the inmate uniform — blue denim tops or bottoms, khaki, camouflage; no gang colors, no revealing or sheer clothing, no open-toed shoes), and expect a full search on arrival. Only a small amount of cash is allowed inside for vending machines — leave phones, cameras, and everything else in the car.

Because HDSP is a Level IV facility, expect the visiting-room process to take longer than at lower-custody CDCR prisons. Given the drive, many families combine a Saturday visit with an overnight stay in Susanville, then a shorter second visit Sunday before heading home. Book both slots on the VSA as soon as they open.

How to send money to an inmate at HDSP

Inmates at HDSP fund their trust and canteen accounts through the same channels as every CDCR prison: Access Corrections' Connect Network and JPay for electronic deposits, plus a mailed-check option through JPay's Los Angeles lockbox. Connect Network is the CDCR-contracted trust deposit route; it usually posts fastest and can be used at accesscorrections.com, by phone, or at MoneyGram locations that support it. JPay handles electronic and mailed deposits. Mailed money orders and checks should be made payable to JPay and sent with a completed JPay deposit slip to JPay, 2202 South Figueroa St, Box #3001, Los Angeles, CA 90007. There is no processing fee for mailed money orders or checks, though checks may sit on a longer hold before clearing.

The California-wide rule to plan around is that CDCR is required to garnish 50 percent of any non-exempt deposit toward restitution the person owes, so if your loved one has an active restitution balance, only half of what you send may reach spendable. Deposits stay with the person if he is transferred, so funds don't need to be re-routed when he moves. Our overview of how to send money to an inmate compares options, and our JPay guide walks through the electronic and mail options in detail.

Mail to an HDSP inmate: address, format, and prohibited items

Personal mail for HDSP inmates goes to Inmate Name and CDCR Number, PO Box 3030, Susanville, CA 96127-3030. Include your full return address (letters without one are frequently rejected) and write the housing assignment on the envelope when you have it. Legal mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence and should be sent separately from personal letters.

Follow California's prohibited-items rules: no cash, personal checks, stamps, stickers, glitter, glue, tape, staples, paperclips, Polaroids, hardcover books, musical or embellished cards, or anything with electronics or metallic elements. Use plain white paper with pen or clear print. Photocopied photos are generally acceptable but original Polaroids are not. Books and publications generally must come directly from the publisher or an approved online retailer such as Amazon, sent to the inmate at the same PO Box 3030 address. Our breakdown of how to send mail to an inmate covers the format and common rejection triggers in more depth.

Phone calls: free through ViaPath since January 2023

Phone service at HDSP, like every CDCR institution, has been free of charge to the incarcerated caller since January 1, 2023, when Senate Bill 1008 (the Keep Families Connected Act) took effect and California ended per-minute call charges. Calls run through ViaPath/GTL's ConnectNetwork platform. You still need to register your phone number on the inmate's approved calling list — do that at connectnetwork.com — before your loved one can dial you. Once registered, calls come in reliably and, in most facilities, without the constant "this call is being recorded" per-minute countdown pressure of the old paid model. The change has meaningfully lifted a financial burden for HDSP families in particular given the drive; a weekly phone rhythm now costs nothing and can substitute for many in-person weekends.

Packages are allowed only through CDCR-approved vendors (currently Union Supply Direct, Walkenhorst's, and a small number of others depending on the specific quarterly package program). Ordering through an approved vendor or funding the canteen is how families support goods purchases. Our guide to calling an inmate, care package guide, and commissary explainer cover the details.

Legal mail, emergencies, health concerns, and avoiding scams

Legal or privileged mail from an attorney or court is opened only in the inmate's presence when properly marked as legal correspondence; keep legal documents out of personal letters. For urgent family emergencies such as a death, serious illness, or birth, call HDSP at (530) 251-5100 and ask to be connected to the chaplain's office to relay the message. Keep the CDCR number handy for the call. If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside — and HDSP has been the subject of enough oversight scrutiny that concerns should be documented from the start — contact staff directly, explain the situation clearly, keep a written record of who you spoke with and when, and follow up in writing if you don't get a satisfactory response. If internal channels do not resolve the concern, the Office of the Ombudsman for CDCR and the Prison Law Office are the two authoritative escalation paths in California.

Be cautious about paying third-party sites — CDCR's own CIRIS search and the department's named providers (Connect Network, JPay, ViaPath/GTL) are the authoritative channels, so paying an unfamiliar site to "locate" a person or forward a deposit is a common way families lose money for something the system provides free. When guidance online conflicts with what the facility tells you, trust the facility, and confirm anything important by calling (530) 251-5100 first.

Reality check on the Susanville drive and Level IV pace

The single defining feature of HDSP for families is the geography. Susanville sits at over 4,100 feet in northeastern California; winter weather closes highways with little notice, and the round trip from most California metros is a two-day commitment even without weather. Many families rotate visits, so the person inside sees someone in the visiting room every second or third weekend rather than every weekend. Between visits, free ViaPath calls and letters carry the weight. Coordinating with other approved visitors so more than one person can drive up together also spreads cost and turns the trip into a shared effort.

Level IV also brings the possibility of modified programs and lockdowns. When a lockdown is in place, visits, calls, and yard movement may be limited or suspended without much warning. It is worth calling ahead the day before a planned visit to confirm the yard is on normal program, and staying in regular contact with your loved one about the current status. Because incarcerated people at Level IV may be moved to another institution as classification scores drop or if a serious incident occurs, re-check CIRIS in the days before every trip.

Records and staying steady

Keeping the CDCR number, current facility yard, VSA login credentials, JPay and Connect Network receipts, and any court, parole, or Board of Parole Hearings dates in one organized place carries families through HDSP with the least added friction. Steady contact through free calls, correctly-addressed letters, and periodic weekend visits is one of the most valuable things you can offer someone doing time at a maximum-security prison.

Inside High Desert State Prison: how the facility is laid out

High Desert State Prison received its first inmates in September 1995, following completion of construction. The facility holds people at Level III and Level IV.

The institution states that it provides vocational programs, educational programs and work assignments for those willing to participate, and that it houses people with disabilities who require specialized placement.

Layout matters more than families expect. Which yard or unit someone is assigned to drives their custody level, their program eligibility, and often their visiting schedule — so when you call, having the housing assignment to hand will get you a useful answer faster than the name alone.

How crowded High Desert State Prison is right now

High Desert State Prison was designed to hold 2,081 people. As of July 22, 2026 the agency reported a population of 2,814, which is 135.2% of that design capacity.

A prison operating at this level is not simply full — it is well past the number it was built for, and that shows up in the things families actually feel. Expect converted dayrooms and gymnasiums used as housing, long waits for medical and dental appointments, program and education waitlists, and visiting slots that fill early. It also drives transfers: when one institution is over capacity, people get moved to wherever there is a bed, sometimes hundreds of miles away.

For scale, the same report puts the state's institutions as a whole at 86,006 people against a design capacity of 71,074, or 121.0% — so this facility sits above the system-wide figure rather than being an outlier.

This figure moves week to week. Treat it as the scale of the place rather than a live count, and confirm anything that affects a visit with the institution directly.

Who runs High Desert State Prison

The senior official on site is Kimberly Thornton, acting Warden since August 2025. Naming the warden is not just trivia: correspondence about a serious unresolved problem should be addressed to that post rather than to the institution generally, because a letter to a named office creates a record that a call to a switchboard does not.

The institution's main line is (530) 251-5100. Use it for anything urgent — a medical emergency, a safety concern, confirming whether visiting is running — and ask for the watch commander or the shift supervisor rather than leaving a message with whoever answers.

Education, training, and work at High Desert State Prison

Academic programming at High Desert State Prison includes Adult Basic Education levels 1 through 3 and GED, Voluntary Education Program high school, face-to-face college on A yard and Voluntary Education Program college on all yards. Enrolment is rarely immediate — most institutions run waitlists, and assignment depends on custody level, sentence length, and prior testing. If your family member wants a place, the request has to come from them through their assigned counsellor; a call from outside will not add someone to a list.

Vocational and career technical training on site includes Computer Literacy, Building Maintenance, Auto Body and Paint and Electronics. These carry more weight than general programming, because completion is documented and can matter at a parole or release review as evidence of work done inside.

Visiting High Desert State Prison: the current schedule

High Desert State Prison receives visitors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with in-person visits offered for a minimum of two hours, though the exact session length varies by institution and availability.

Two things about that schedule are worth knowing before you drive. Published hours are when the visiting room is open, not when you can arrive — processing closes well before the room does, and arriving inside the last hour often means being turned away. And a published schedule is suspended more often than it is changed: lockdowns, staffing shortages, and medical isolation all cancel visiting at short notice, usually without the website being updated.

Visiting is booked through the department's Visitation Scheduling Application. The booking window opens eight days before the visit and closes five days before it, and the daily request period opens at 6:00 a.m. for northern institutions, 6:30 a.m. for central, and 7:00 a.m. for southern, running to 11:59 p.m. Only people already approved as visitors can book an appointment, so the approval application has to be completed and granted before any date can be reserved. Visits can be cancelled at any time for health and safety reasons, and can be ended early if staff see a visitor or a resident showing symptoms of a contagious illness.

Call the institution the morning you travel and ask specifically whether visiting is running on your family member's yard or unit — not whether the prison is open. Those are different questions, and the second one gets a misleadingly reassuring answer.

Your first steps if a loved one just arrived at HDSP

If someone you love has just been transferred to High Desert, focus first on the essentials: write down their CDCR number and current facility yard, request CDCR Form 106 for visitor approval and register at cdcr.gtlvisitme.com/app once approved, set up Connect Network or JPay for deposits (knowing California withholds 50 percent for restitution), and mail to PO Box 3030, Susanville, CA 96127-3030 with legal mail clearly marked. Register your phone number at connectnetwork.com for free calls under SB 1008. If your loved one has an eligible parole date, our guides on life after prison, finding work after prison, and applying for SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF after release cover what comes next as the release date approaches. If old records may create barriers to housing or work, our guide on expunging or sealing a criminal record explains California's paths for post-conviction relief.