California Prison Reform Claims the National Stage

SO MANY INMATES

         The issue of prison overcrowding, which was an (admittedly small and generally sidestepped) issue of debate between gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and governor-elect Jerry Brown has now been thrust into the national public consciousness thanks to a pair of twin cases that have arrived on the doorstep of the Supreme Court. Both cases, Schwarzenegger v. Plata and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger have to do with the squalid conditions (such as lack of healthcare and adequate sanitation) that plague the California prison system, which is choked to the brim with inmates.  The prisons themselves, which are designed to hold 110,000 inmates at maximum capacity currently hold 147,000 prisoners.
         The lawyers that have been engaged in building their respective cases have primarily cited the Eighth Amendment in their quest to prove the current prison situation in our Great State to be unconstitutional.  Personally, I agree, as the conditions described in various articles I have read are beyond inhumane--some prisons keep their inmates in conditions that would barely befit livestock.  Something obviously needs to be done.
          Although no definitive decision has yet been rendered, the judges on the highest bench are currently divided on rather partisan lines, with one judge wavering in the middle.  The more liberal judges are arguing in favor of a reduction in the numbers of inmates in order to remedy some of the buildup which has lead to the horrible conditions, while the more conservative side is focusing on the problems presented with the release of some 30,000 inmates into the world at large; it should be noted that it has been suggested that the nonviolent criminals in the prison system be shuffled down to the jails.  Personally, I believe that a way to alleviate at least a very small portion of the pressure and overcrowding in the prisons is to eliminate the Three Strikes Law, which has put too many people permanently behind bars.  Whatever the decision, it will be interesting to see how these cases play out, as the issue is all too close to home.