State officials scramble to craft new inmate reduction plan
The clock is ticking, again, for state prison officials. They have less than a month to put together a plan to reduce California’s prison population. A panel of federal judges Wednesday rejected the state’s first plan. And they say California had better not fall short again.
California prisons hold nearly 170,000 inmates. They’re designed to hold about half that many. Earlier this year, three federal judges ruled that overcrowding was the main reason inmates fail to get basic mental and medical care.
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They ordered prison officials to draft a plan to reduce the inmate population by 44,000 in two years. The plan the Schwarzenegger Administration submitted cut it only by about half that, and over three years, not two.
Gordon Hinkel with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stands by the plan.
“The state is going to continue to work to implement reforms that we’ve enacted by the state budget that will reduce overcrowding without compromising public safety,” Hinkle said.
But Hinkel said the Schwarzenegger Administration will respond to the order for a new prisoner reduction plan by Nov. 12.
The judges say that plan must reduce the prison population more, provide more details on how California will achieve those reductions, and include a timetable that specifies when it will happen.
If the state’s next prison population reduction plan falls short, the federal judges will consider alternate proposals from attorneys for inmates and other involved in the case.
Donald Spector with the Prison Law Office is drafting a prisoner reduction plan right now.
“We are pretty close,” Spector said, “because we will submit something that’s similar to what the governor proposed to the legislature a few months ago.”
That proposal would have cut the prisoner population by 37,000. That’s close to what the judges wanted. The State Senate adopted it, but the Assembly, under pressure from law enforcement, watered it down.
“What happened is the governor proposed to the courts what had gotten through the legislature,” explained Spector. “They decided to appease the law enforcement community and defy the federal courts.”
The three federal judges have made it clear that California has one more chance to decide how to cut the prison population by 44,000 inmates.
In their written order, the judges warned the state that if it fails again to provide a plan that achieves that goal, the court will dictate a solution and it will force California to make it happen.
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4 weeks ago
now thats what im talking about.....lets get this party started.....hell ya
3 weeks, 6 days ago
There are thousands upon thousands in our prisons that should not be there. I agree, start cutting. This state puts incarceration over education and it must stop. Education and job training is the best way to lower recidivism. Stop creating more and more laws that make more and more behaviors punishable with prison sentences. It is just unbelievable what kind of sentences this state hands down. Make the punishemnts fit the crimes. What we have now is completely out of balance. Even judges and DA's don't understand the penal codes and the sentences that go with them. If they don't understand them, how can we?
3 weeks, 5 days ago
Get them out of there we want our family members home so they can better their lives.
not everyone they have locked up are those evil people you the public think they are.....
3 weeks, 3 days ago
Instead of reducing the population the cuts are being done by doing away with education and drug programs that keep inmates from returning to prison, thus they are increasing the population instead. Please help put a stop t this. Barbara
3 weeks, 1 day ago
my husband is one of the ones suffering here!!!!! let them go!!!!!
3 weeks, 1 day ago
I agree. The only ones profiting here are the CO's working overtime! You don't believe it!! Check out the employee parking lot at a California prison. You've never seen so many Jaguars, Escalades and other luxury cars!