The Department of Corrections says the order prioritizes prisons because they house people in custody, but advocates oppose building new prisons with stronger infrastructure. More than 12,000 people are incarcerated in a dozen Oregon prisons, and several correctional facilities in Western Oregon are particularly vulnerable to the “Big One” seismologists expect to hit the Pacific Northwest in the next 50 years. But they were a major barrier to accomplishing the executive order, Oregon’s state resilience officer, Jonna Papaefthimiou, said at a recent public event. Papaefthimiou pointed to the Salem-based Oregon State Penitentiary, which could be renovated or replaced with a new building in the next decade following an ongoing review by the Oregon Department of Corrections. But criminal justice reform advocates were quick to caution against creating a new facility for the Oregon State Penitentiary, instead suggesting that the state work to lower the number of people incarcerated in Oregon.