January 31, 2011
Legal Challenges to Drive Calif. Prison Construction
There is no end in sight to California’s prison woes.
Last month the state’s newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown proposed moving low-level offenders from state prisons to county jails to ease prison overcrowding and reduce the state’s $28 billion deficit.
A federal court ruled in 2009 that California must reduce its state prison population by 30,000. The U.S. Supreme Court will rule in early 2011 on whether to uphold the lower federal court’s ruling and force the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to decrease its inmate population. The overcrowded conditions were called “cruel and unusual” and cited as a driver behind prison riots, inadequate delivery of healthcare to inmates and inmate suicide...
LINK - CorrectionalNews.com
