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California Judges Want Prison Population Cut by 40 Percent

by Rob Walker | February 10, 2009 at 01:06 pm

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A panel of three judges made an early ruling on Monday that California must reduce the number of prisoners in jails by as much as 40 per cent. That translates to about 58,000 inmates. The decision was based on the serious overcrowding that the system is seeing, with prisons being filled to 200 per cent capacity.

With a huge economic crisis facing the state, they are unable to build new institutions and they can't keep up with the demand for more space, or provide adequate medical and health care. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his corrections and rehabilitation secretary both strongly disagreed with the ruling.

"Overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons," the court concluded.
California state officials, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, immediately promised to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

"The governor and I strongly disagree with this ruling," said Matthew Cate, California's corrections and rehabilitation secretary. Implementing the court's ruling would result in up to 58,000 prisoners being released, Cate said, describing it as a threat to public safety.

But why is California doing this in the first place? Probably because they're broke. Spending way past the rate of inflation and the country's population growth, California is draining money from all of its major services, so it's not just prisons. Hospitals and schools, everyone is feeling the pinch.

We got what we wanted and we've never figured out how to pay for it. And then we had this recession, and that made everything worse," said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy.q]

Amongst the hundreds of thousands of people incarcerated in California prisons are people like 88-year-old Helen Loheac, who died the oldest female inmate in the California prison system in January.
[q url="http://www.alternet.org/rights/126041/why_are_we_keeping_old_ladies_locked_up_in_prison/"]On Jan. 5, Loheac, the oldest female inmate in California's prison system, died of pneumonia in a hospital near the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, where she had been incarcerated. She was shackled at her waist and ankles, two guards at her bedside.

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eastvanray

at 14:23 on February 10th, 2009

Oh, so I assume these judges (being highly educated and intelligent types) have found a way for californians to committ 40% less crime? Or will 4 in 10 crimes simply not be punished?

Mary Richard

at 16:27 on February 10th, 2009

The state is broke, but it was spending $250,000 a year to keep an 88 year old woman with Alzheimer's locked up, to 'protect the public.'

"As California's elderly prison population burgeons, calls for prison reform are growing louder. State Sen. Gloria Romero, former chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, believes that prison officials should do a risk assessment and release the least risky prisoners.

Dodge and other activists heartily agree. Loheac, they say, was one of those who should have come out long ago."