Compounding the problem are the prisons. In 2005 the California prison health care system was placed under federal supervision following a determination 34 prisoners died as a result of inadequate care and the prisons violated constitutional guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment. The receiver last year won approval of a plan calling for $6B of spending for new medical facilities and another $2B for repairs to existing California prisons.
Late last month, Governor Arnold Schwarznegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown filed suit in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco asking to end the federal receivership and return the prisons to state oversight.
In addition, there are two long running lawsuits that contend the problems with California prisons are a result of overcrowding and a federal court is chartered with deciding if the lawsuits are legitimate and, if so, what to do about it. That federal judical panel will hear closing arguments today, and the impact of the decision could be far reaching. Inmates attorneys argued yesterday the answer to the California prison problem is the release of 52,000 inmates.
Even with the release of the 50K inmates, the number left (110K) would still exceed California prison capacity by 10.000 prisoners. And the state has warned an early release of over 50,000 inmates would overwhelm also nearly bankrupt local authorities responsible to monitor the ex-inmates.
Last year I wrote:
While the U.S. has considerably more violent crime than other
countries, non-violent crime rates are actually quite low. What's
differentiates U.S. criminal justice are the longer sentences given for
non-violent crime or, in many cases, that incarceration is enforced at
all for more minor crimes. As an example, the Times notes convicted
burglars in the U.S. serve an average of 16 months in prison compared
to 5 months in Canada and 8 months in Britain.
Not arguing right or wrong, effectiveness or ineffectiveness, the cost
of our prison system is enormous and born mostly by the states. For
example, in California, it's anticipated that in 5 years more money
will be spent on incarcerating prisoners than educating students in
public universities. The FY2007 annual operating budget to maintain
the California prison system is $10B. A 2007 law authorized an
additional $7.4B be spent to build 40,000 new prison beds. Interest
payments on state bonds sold to finance prison construction will amount
to $330M/year by 2011. The Governor of California, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, is floating the idea of releasing prisoners early to
free up overcrowded prisons.
There are too many people in prison in the United States and the system is just about ready to break in California. It will be fixed one way or the other - either by lawmakers adding some rationality to sentencing or the wholesale early release of tens of thousands of convicted inmates.
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