California May Be Forced to Release Up to a Third of All Prisoners
February 10th, 2009How will the private prison companies manage?
Via: Reuters:
Federal judges on Monday tentatively ordered California to release tens of thousands of inmates, up to a third of all prisoners, in the next three years to stop dangerous overcrowding.
As many as 57,000 could be let go if the current population were cut by the maximum percentage considered by a three-judge panel. Judges said the move could be done without threatening public safety — and might improve a public safety hazard.
The state immediately said it would appeal the final ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trend-setting California, the Golden State, has an immense prison system responsible for nearly 170,000 inmates, and their care has become a major political and budget issue as officials weigh multibillion costs of improved facilities against death and illness behind bars.
Well, in California, the negative influence of the state prison guard’s union is hard to overstate. Private prisons with oversight would almost be welcome as a way to crack their power. They get the highest pay among the states. They rewrote parolee violation rules so CA has very high ‘recidivism’ rates, for nonviolent offenders who didn’t recommit a crime but missed meetings or moved to a different county. They’re bankrupting the state.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1302785.html
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=684901
“Judges said the move could be done without threatening public safety”
The fact that this is pretty much true — it could be done, for weed smokers are not a threat to public safety — says a lot about the system that has been in place so far.
But, is that who really will be released?