San Quentin State Prison is the oldest prison (Opened in July 1852) in California. It's a maximum-security facility that once housed Charles Manson. Men condemned to death in California must (with some exceptions) be held at San Quentin. It's the state's only death row for male inmates, the largest in the United States. In 2001, San Quentin's death row was described as "the largest in the Western Hemisphere"; and in 2005, it was referred to as, "the most populous execution antechamber in the United States. The “death row” prison count, as of December 2015, was 708 male inmates.