Someone Finally Acknowledges the Prison Problem!
Federal judges have tentatively ruled on a suit filed by California prisoners claiming that overcrowding has deprived them of their right to adequate health care. This means the state may have to reduce prison populations by up to a third. No doubt this will frighten many Californians who vote, which is why this was a good issue for the courts to decide.
My own take is that this is only a first step. Even setting aside the moral argument against lengthy sentences and rare parole, prisons that were built four decades ago are carrying four times the load for which they were designed, and we don't have the money to build more. Something needs to be done, and this ruling at least seems to acknowledge the problem.
My own take is that this is only a first step. Even setting aside the moral argument against lengthy sentences and rare parole, prisons that were built four decades ago are carrying four times the load for which they were designed, and we don't have the money to build more. Something needs to be done, and this ruling at least seems to acknowledge the problem.
posted by Dan at 11:03 AM
20 Comments:
"U.S. District Court Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton and 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt"
Really? How did the prisoners end up getting bother Thelton Henderson AND Reinhardt?! I don't know anything about Karlton, but I'd be interested to see who they pull on appeal to the 9th.
OMG!!! Allz teh rapists be bak on teh streets!!!
Slammy:
From the view of the state, the 3 judge panel was the worst in the history of ever. Also, I'm not sure how appealable this is to the 9th Circuit. Aren't there different rules with regards to 3 judge panels on this issue?
Is there someone that paid more attention in fed courts?
"And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!
And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?"
I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "Littering."
And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance."
And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench."
Major props to anyone who spots the reference without using Google.
Not appealable to the 9th Circuit. It goes directly to the Supreme Court.
We'll see what happens there... those guys are perhaps slightly less sympathetic.
Easy solution: increase the number of crimes where death sentences are in play and limit appeals. Problem solved.
Hard solution: alter prison sentences and take a look at how well three strikes is working.
Posner came to me in a dream last night, so I'd advocate for the easy solution. Efficiency is the number one public policy priority after all.
Death sentences for everyone!
Better yet! Let's execute people before they even commit the crime; death penalties for those that are merely likely to commit the crimes!
That would ease prison-crowding, and severely reduce crime. Problem solved!
abortions for all!
problem here is not the serious offenders anyway, its the drug offenders and returning parolees.
so all joking aside, even if we change life sentences to death, it wouldn't fix the problem.
I enjoyed it more when it was all non-serious joking.
"You can do anything you want,
at Alice's Restaurant"
Thank you, 12:14. You just made my day. :)
Aaaaaahh! It's "get" not "do." "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant." It makes all the difference!
I had to go listen to it after posting and realized my mistake.
-2:14
Patrick: Alice's Restaurant?
d'oh, just saw that others got the reference before me. -6:48
You can get anything you need, at Alice's Restauree!
Release all the non-violent drug offenders. Problem solved. And the beauty of it is that in a rational society they would not have been in prison in the first place!
You know I actually considered calling into the NPR forum show on this today. The problem with releasing "non-violent drug offenders" is the following:
Just because they are convicted of "only holding 100kg of cocaine" doesn't mean they aren't a threat to society. For example, prosecutors often can't get witnesses to testify in shootings---but they can convict based on a CI nailing them in a drug bust.
The other thing is that drug offenders in state prison are not your run of the mill pot smoker. Those guys are in county jail---these are usually the big dudes with major violent records in their past.
So while I am not saying we can't release ANY of them, it would be wise to recognize that it isn't as simple as it sounds.
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