California prison overcrowding before US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court is about to hear arguments about a federal court order requiring California to release inmates from its overcrowded prisons. What is causing concern is the medical and mental health care delivered to inmates in the nation’s largest state prison system.

There are 18 states that has joined Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration in urging the justices to reject the order as overreaching and arguing that it poses a threat to public safety.  These attorneys general of other states say they could possibly be in a similar situation, if the previous court decision is left standing.

Back in 2005, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that an average of one inmate per week was dying in California prisons as a result of medical neglect or malfeasance. The prison health care system has been judged so poor that the federal courts have found it violates the constitutional rights of inmates.  And last year, a three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that reducing the inmate population by about 40,000 inmates is the only way to improve medical and mental health care.

For over 20 years, California has been fighting lawsuits from its treatment of inmates, although this is the first time it has reached the highest court in the land.  And it also will be the first time the justices will have to consider a prisoner release order in any state, which falls under a 1996 federal law, that governs judges’ actions in inmates rights cases.

The main contention is that the three judges overstepped their authority.  Expecially when the judges ordered the state of California to trim its prison inmate population 110,000 in the 33 adult prisons within two years.  All total, these prisons were made to hold just 80,000 at full capacity and they now house 144,000. 

The judges’ order “represents the highest level of federal court interference with state prison management and fails to take into account the adverse effects it will have on public safety,” Andrea Hoch, Schwarzenegger’s legal affairs secretary, said in a statement this week. “This appeal is important to preserve the state’s rights to operate its criminal justice system.”

My Northwest

But California has already been lowering the prison inmate population as it overhauled its parole and sentencing policies.  About 10,000 inmates have been sent to private prisons in other states while 5,000have been authorized for transfer out of state.  California has also clashed with a federal judge who appointed a receiver in 2006 to oversee all aspects of California’s prison health care system.

And there are problems with this receiver.  Under the guidance of the receiver, the prisons’ annual medical budget from $707 million to $1.5 billion, hired more medical staff and increased salaries.   And 46 inmates died last year, and the receiver reported their lives could have been saved, had they had better medical care. 

Soon to be Governor Jerry Brown said the receiver’s demands constitute a threat to state sovereignty and that California should be protected from a federal court raid of the state’s budget.

“It’s an enormously important case,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, who is not representing any party in the ongoing court battles. “The reality is that the California prisons are desperately overcrowded, and as a result prisoners receive grossly inadequate medical care. The question then is, what can the federal courts do about it?”

My Northwest

The final decision of the Supreme Court might hinder on whether the judges successfully followed a complex federal law that lets courts order the early release of inmates only if a special judicial panel decides all other options have been exhausted.
The state says the 3 judge panel has violated the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act.

Prison Litigation Reform Act

The state also argues that releasing inmates will jeopardize the public unless the state invests in rehabilitation programs it cannot afford as it faces a $25 billion budget gap over the next 18 months.  Most of the evidence though, favors the inmates.  If the ruling is upheld, the state will have two years to act once the final order takes effect.

Meeting the judges’ deadline would require California to keep criminals convicted of drug possession, receiving stolen property, theft and check fraud in county jails instead of state prisons.  And it is even suggested that lowere risk inmates might serve the final 12 months of their sentence with house arrest, and wear ankle bracelets.  Several of the changes would require modifications in state laws and would burden counties already dealing with crowded jails and dwindling budgets.

• Posted in: Crime & Punishment
• Tagged: California prisons, ordered released, overcrowding, prisoner health