Posted on 12/14/2008 8:46:53 AM PST by SmithL
A panel of three federal judges is holding a trial to determine whether to free 52,000 of California's 172,000 prison inmates to alleviate overcrowding. You might be asking yourself: Who elected these guys to run California?
One of the three, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, already determined in 2005 that California's prison health care system is so bad that it's unconstitutional. He put the system in receivership, and appointed law Professor Clark Kelso to oversee prison health care. Now Kelso is demanding $8 billion to renovate the system - even though the state spends about $14,000 on health care per inmate, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
(California's total health care spending was $169 billion in 2006, the California Medical Association's Ned Wigglesworth told me, which, divided by 37 million residents, comes to about $4,600 per head - or a third of what is spent on the incarcerated.)
Here's the unfunny funny part: Criminal Justice Legal Foundation President Michael Rushford recently figured out that inmates live longer on the inside than on the outside, and they live longer on the inside than outsiders live. He found a study, "Release from Prison - A High Risk of Death for Former Inmates," published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, which shows that the mortality rate for Washington state inmates spiked more than 1,200 percent in the first two weeks after their release, and averaged 386 percent higher than inmates in prison during the two years after release. The study also found that Washington inmates live longer than the general population.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
A judge is just a lawyer with too much power.
Per incarceration? No way in hell it is per year.
And how many of the inmates are actually Americans? Of course, California wonders why it’s broke!
California is now officially imploding.
Cities are already starting layoffs - even “never met a MEChA union member he didn’t like” Tony Villar (LA Mayor) began talking layoffs this week. That was a surprize.
Arnold’s talking about bringing back the “car tax”, which was what ousted his predecessor and brought Arnold into office.
It will be like one of those building demolition newsreels, but bigger, and slower.
And now prisoners are being released.
What could possibly go wrong?...
Arnold has the answer. He’s going to give all the inmates bank accounts!
Governor Schwarzenegger Launches “Bank on California” to Help Californians Open Bank Accounts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2148579/posts
Reconstruction II is only getting started.
A Carter appointee. That says all I need to know about this moron.
Q: What do you say to a lawyer with an IQ of less-than 50?
A: “Good morning, Your Honor.”
Damn out of control “judges” legislating from the bench again. It’s clowns like this who are “unconstitutional.”
When Ron Reagan did his speach in 69? for Goldwater he brought up how much we spend in taxes to the destitude, and compared that with being able to send them to Harvord for less. The fact that many Americans earn less than what it costs to keep an inmate in jail should be headline news. I’m all for having non violent criminals tagged or otherwise ankle collared, and will somebody, ANYBODY, just put to death Mummia! the fact that even a penny of my money goes to that peice of you know what..
Maybe the new prez will commute his sentence and pardon his cop killing butt. I would not put it past him.
Let’s at least get rid of the Illegals, can we? I have a plan.
Is that all they're talking about doing? Releasing some inmates 60 days early to alleviate overcrowding? We do that all the time in my state, and often people will be released a lot more than just sixty days early. Prison and jail overcrowding has gotten so bad that most people sentenced to prison remain on the streets for several months before they actually have to go serve their sentences. They have to wait for prison beds to come available and there is no room in the jails to keep them while they wait so all but a few of them will be allowed to stay out on “reporting bonds.”
And the idiots of California are unarmed against the soon-to-be released criminals.
Sad to live in the hell hole of Kalipornia.
Is it true that all they are talking about doing is releasing certain inmates sixty days early though?
Start cutting govt salaries & benefits beginning w/Gropinator and judges throughout. Do to these top people the same as being asked of the UAW.
...snip...
Corrections spokesman Seth Unger explained what that difference would be: "Releasing 50,000 inmates would be the equivalent of emptying 10 prisons onto the streets." Maybe Karlton doesn't worry about the effect on the general public. But now we know, more prisoners may die.
The underlying theme of this article is prisoner who get out earlier die at a higher rate than prisoner who stay incarcerated and they are worried more prisoners may die ???
Truly we live in a bizzaro world
That expresses the direction I was leaning on this matter very well.
Because elected officials have gotten used to following the edicts of judicial tyrants instead of defying them when they exceed their powers.
From the County perspective, these people will be released to their original communities without parole requirements. Our jail is full to capacity all the time with a six month waiting period for lessor crimes even with a program for electronic incarceration for lessor crimes. (We are also experienceing runaway and extreme costs for medical treatment of prisoners - who have a large substance abuse and mental illness problem.) These returned folks will re-offend. The State is upping its requirement for the Counties to retain prisoners with sentences under a certain time period. (Used to be a year.) This sticks the Counties with the bad apples.
At the same time, we are poised to lay off folks on the County level. (We have already frozen jobs through attrition.) We have no money to build a new jail, (even with state help,) as we can’t afford to staff it. Our jail and courthouse are also in an historic didtrict and we can’t expand.
The judges are not solving the problem. They are creating an even worse disaster. Right now our non murder violent crimes are at a rate per 1000 people five times that of Los Angeles. California is creating conditions in rural areas that rival third world countries.
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