More California prison inmates to be released by year-end

San Francisco Chronicle/Associated Press/Paul Elias, 8/2/13.  "High court won't delay release of California inmates."

Almost sprung and looking for a job,
or the alternative, what's in your house?

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday paved the way for the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by year's end despite warnings by Gov. Jerry Brown and other state officials that a public safety crisis looms if they're forced to open the prison gates.  The majority of justices refused Brown's emergency request to halt a lower court's directive for the early release of the prisoners to ease severe overcrowding at California's 33 adult prisons.  A panel of three federal judges previously ordered the state to cut its prison population by nearly 8 percent to roughly 110,000 inmates by Dec. 31 to avoid conditions amounting to cruel and unusual punishment.

Brown has argued that prison conditions have substantially improved and that circumstances have changed since the federal courts' original order four years ago to reduce the prison population.  The state is spending $2 billion on new or expanded facilities for inmate medical and mental health treatment. That includes seven new centers for mental health treatment and the opening last June of an $839 million prison hospital in Stockton that will treat 1,722 inmates requiring long-term care. The state also has boosted hiring and salaries for all types of medical and mental health professionals.
 

The judges want the population reduced to 137 percent of the designed capacity in the state's 33 adult prisons by the end of the year The state has already reduced the population by 46,000 inmates since 2006."  Read article.

Note:  photograph from  The Telegraph, UK.

Posted by Kathy Meeh