Inspectors sent to check on California prison kitchens found rotten tomatoes, moldy peppers, spiderwebs and bug-covered fly traps at Corcoran, and moldy ceilings at Corcoran and California State Prison, Sacramento, along with equipment failures and missing utensils serious enough to raise security concerns. The findings come from an audit by the state’s Office of the Inspector General, which examined food programs and services inside California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation facilities.
The audit, which The Sacramento Bee reported on, covered four prisons visited over several months: California State Prison, Sacramento, in September and October 2025; California State Prison, Corcoran, and the Central California Women’s Facility in October 2025; and Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in December 2025. Inspector General Amarik Singh said auditors found sanitation deficiencies and equipment that failed to properly sanitize food trays and utensils, according to the Bee’s reporting. “Our observations found several deficiencies at three of the prisons we reviewed,” the report states.
Rotten Produce and Moldy Ceilings
At Corcoran, auditors documented rotten tomatoes and moldy peppers, which the report tied to weak scheduling practices for discarding spoiled food before it piled up. The same kitchen had moldy ceilings, spiderwebs and fly traps covered in bugs, the Bee reports. Moldy ceilings also turned up as a concern at California State Prison, Sacramento.
One facility stood apart from the rest. The Central California Women’s Facility had fewer deficiencies than the other three prisons audited, and Singh pointed to it as a model, calling it an example of how a kitchen in a prison setting should be maintained, per the Bee’s account. The women’s facility also houses Growing Justice, a program built around a vertical farm of stacked growing systems used to grow crops on-site, according to Oaklandside.
A Missing Wire Whip Raises Security Flags
Beyond sanitation, the audit flagged gaps in how kitchens track utensils. All four facilities were missing at least some daily logs for kitchen utensils used by incarcerated workers, the report found. Under normal procedure, incarcerated people using utensils are required to check them out from an officer when removing them from a locked room…