Last week in California, federal judges ruled that the state has until 2016 to reduce its prison population to relieve overcrowding. This is the latest decision in an ongoing legal struggle to manage the California state prison system, which has been sued for being overcrowded and for providing substandard medical care.
California State Granted 2-Year Extension to Reduce Prison Population
The three-judge panel ruled that California must reduce the number of prisoners in state prisons by approximately 5,000 by the beginning of March 2016 in order to relieve the overcrowding of a penal system that is currently at 144% of capacity. A compliance officer will be appointed to ensure that goals are reached. If they aren’t, the compliance officer will have the power to release inmates based on risk.
The state originally had until the end of April of this year in order to reach the court’s state prison population cap of 112,000.
Medical care provided in California state prisons is substandard and inmates’ safety is inadequate, according to the ruling in the original lawsuits brought against the state. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision to reduce the prison population, and an appeal by the governor was denied.
The panel criticized the state for not correcting the problem sooner, saying that it has cost the taxpayers of California and has led to suffering of inmates.
Solutions: More Prisons, Better Medical Care, Better Rehabilitation
Since the original ruling, California has taken steps to address the problem; it has already reduced the prison population by 25,000. Many prisoners have been transferred from state prisons to county jails in California or to prisons in other states – approximately 8,900 California prisoners are incarcerated in other states. The recent ruling prohibits the state from transferring prisoners out of state to reduce the numbers.
In addition, more prisons and medical facilities were built in California, including an $839 million facility in Stockton.
Had California not been granted the extension, Governor Jerry Brown said they would have been prepared to spend $70 million total to lease cells to accommodate the overflow. Now with the extension, he plans to address the problem by reducing recidivism with $81 million to improve rehabilitation programs in the next year. Currently, nearly 50% of inmates recidivate within a year, and over 65% of inmates do so within three years, according to a 2011 report 2011 from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations.
The panel recommended that California consider reforming sentencing laws in order to reduce the number of people incarcerated in the first place, especially for non-violent crimes. However, this recommendation is not binding.
Attorneys for the prisoners are not happy with the extension, believing that that the inmates, especially those with physical and mental health issues, will continue to suffer under present conditions. They may appeal last week’s ruling.
