Also located in Susanville is the High Desert State Prison (California) (maximum security), and nearby the Federal Correctional Institution, Herlong.

[12] The federal Bureau of Land Management supplies wild horses captured from the "high desert border country of northeastern California and western Nevada"; inmates "are not paid for their participation.

[18][19] However, defenders of the California Correctional Center sued the state, which prompted a judge in rural Lassen County to issue a temporary restraining order which halted the closure.

[23] It explores the effects upon the residents of rural Susanville of living near the CCC, High Desert State Prison, and the nearby Federal Correctional Institution, Herlong, which was opening when the film was made.

In "job-starved rural America, ... residents see them as the last and only chance for employment after work at the lumber mill or the dairy dries up.