Posted on 08/05/2009 5:49:45 PM PDT by Zoe Brain
California’s prisons are so overcrowded that the state is violating inmates’ constitutional rights, three federal judges ruled today in a decision imposing a cap on the prison population that will force the state to release nearly 43,000 prisoners over the next two years.
...
The ruling by three federal judges stems from challenges by two inmates alleging that the state’s network of 33 prisons is so overcrowded that they are denied adequate health care and treatment of mental illnesses.
California’s prisons, designed to hold 84,000 inmates, house 158,000, much of the overflow contained in converted sports facilities arrayed with triple-tier bunks. That exposes prisoners to infectious diseases, the lawsuits alleged, constituting cruel and unusual punishment in a system suffering a shortage of doctors, nurses and technicians.
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In late July, during the heated debate over how to close a $26.3-billion shortfall in the state budget, California lawmakers passed $1.2 billion in cuts to the state prison system that envisioned some early releases of inmates. But they put off deciding specific details amid harsh resistance by law-and-order advocates who fear any mass release of prisoners would endanger public safety.
In a preliminary ruling issued by the three judges in February, the state was advised to reduce the prison population by about a third, meaning as many as 57,000 inmates would have to be moved out of the state facilities over a two- to three-year period.
Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown denounced the earlier ruling as “the latest intrusion” of the federal courts into the state’s affairs, and he is expected to appeal today’s ruling.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
They are so hot on killing the unborn and the elderly before their time, but murderers are off-limits?
Why not end the War on Drugs? Stop wasting taxpayers money trying to “modify” the behavior of idiots that want to fry their brains. It’s not working...
I hope they stay in CA and don’t migrate north.... We already have far too many democrats in the bigger cities here.
They should release 43,000 state union workers instead. But if they are going to release prisoners, they should be dropped off in the neighborhoods of the judge and democrat senators...with a map.
You can't put inmates in unsanitary conditions.
I wonder if California purposefully keeps its prisons full to the brim to help justify tax hikes. I have to agree with you about prisoners though, unless they are set to be executed, they need to be kept in sanitary conditions.
I would like to mention that the three judges who ruled on this are liberal Federal judges.
43 thousand more unemployed on the federal and state dime. yes this will help california they will prolly get 500 bucks a week and they prolly only cost the state a few bucks a week oops sheriff joe is in arizona hmmmmmmm
Will ICE send the 15,000 illegals home?
Bullshit. Put them in tents. Let them dig slit trenches. These bastards earned the right to live under conditions that we do not hesitate to require military personnel to endure. California’s response should be to purchase home adjacent to federal judges’s home and release the most perverted inmates to live in them. Is there anything stupider than a federal judge?
"Is there anything stupider than a federal judge?"
The majority of members of Congress of the United States.
Additionally, all three judges from the 9th Circuit..Reinhardt, Karlton, and Henderson, were nominated by Jimmy Carter. No surprise there. The one who really pisses me off is Reinhardt. He is married to Ramona Ripston who is deeply involved with the Los Angeles ACLU.
Put them in tents and let them dig their own slit trenches, too, which will have to be mighty large for such a collection of bullshitters. This country deserves much better government than it is getting.
Time to tell these unelected black robed tyrants to go f themselves, and go enforce the order themselves.
You are correct.
I hope they stay in California, too - but this sounds like a home-grown version of the Mariel Boatlift. Part of California's problem *will* be dumped on other states.
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