25%? No problem.
Posted on 08/04/2009 8:52:11 PM PDT by SmithL
San Francisco -- A federal court panel ordered California on Tuesday to reduce the population of its bulging prisons by 40,000 over the next two years to meet constitutional standards for inmate health care, and said it could be done without releasing dangerous prisoners to the streets.
"The convergence of tough-on-crime policies and an unwillingness to expend the necessary funds to support the population growth has brought California's prisons to the breaking point," the three-judge panel said. Unless the courts intervene, the panel said, inmates will continue to suffer and die needlessly because prisons lack the space and the staff to treat them.
By changing parole practices and releasing some low-risk inmates to local custody, treatment programs or electronic monitoring, the prison population can be reduced "without a meaningful adverse impact on public safety," the judges said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration immediately announced that it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state needs to reduce prison crowding on its own, by lowering the inmate population and building more prisons, but "we just don't think the federal courts should be ordering us to take those steps," state Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate told reporters.
Don Specter, a lawyer for prisoners who sued the state over health care, said the ruling allows California to "finally fix the horrible problems caused by prison overcrowding, and do so in a way that will not harm public safety but will make us all safer."
The ruling "means we can't continue to sit on our hands," said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee.
But Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster (Los Angeles County), a party leader on prison issues, said the effect of the ruling would be "releasing dangerous inmates into every community in the state."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Make them or their families pay for their healthcare when in prison.
time to lock’n’load..
Just when you thought guns sales could go no further..... sheesh!
Drop ‘em off in front of his home when they’re released.
Deport most of the illegals?
Or they could build more prisons.
Or stop arresting people for petty drug stuff.
Make me.
Not only no, but f*ck no.
Send the US Army or whatever, but NO.
There is absolutely no reason why American taxpayers should have to pay to incarcerate other countries’ criminals.
Of course, we MUST secure BOTH border so they don't return.
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Makes me glad we have Oregon between us and California....
However, let’s not eliminate the possibility that we will see a “New York State of Mind” invade the Golden State. It could prove infinitely cheaper for California to offer these parolees bus tickets in return for a guarantee never to darken Californian doorways again...
Portland OR. Seattle, and all points East need to keep a close eye on their bus terminals...
Or stop sending people to state prison for long terms for petty drug stuff.
re: Judge Henderson.
One of my classes at law school went out to dinner with him, back in the late 1980s. I remember that he said he was in the same class at Boalt as CA Gov. Pete Wilson. Quote: “We called Pete the anchorman, because he anchored down the curve for the rest of us.”
He also essentially said that where the law afforded him wiggle room, he wiggled to the liberal side. The example he was referring to was when he went so far as to stop people from fishing for tuna in order to keep dolphins from getting caught in the nets. I remember the people at the table nodding like he had thrown his judicial weight around appropriately in that regard. I wanted to fit in, and I like dolphins, so I’m sure I nodded too, but I think even then I was struck by how much chutzpah (or callousness) it took to throw so many people out of work suddenly. Judges do indeed have really big egos. That was my first introduction to them.
Also, another random note: He is the only person I have ever seen eat sweetbreads. I do not know why they were on the menu, but he ordered them.
really..what can this panel do to the state?? arrest them??..
(&#^!@* lawyers.
CA can’t organize a trip to the bathroom, let alone an efficient prison system or any other system. They simply cannot be efficient. Laws relating to “prisoner’s rights” need to be scaled way back. It’s not a daycare center. Let ‘em buy their own Pampers if they need them.
If we can lock and load, so can you. Just because these scumbags are incarcerated in CA doesn’t mean they originated in CA. It just means they committed one or more felonies here. A lot of criminals migrated here from other states, and WA state is a meaningful source. We also have a huge share of illegal alien prisoners, and that’s because of our geographical location. If these scum were coming in from Canada, we wouldn’t be blaming WA state for having a large percentage of Canadian scum in their prisons. You should be thanking us for paying the freight on these SOBs as long as we have instead of dropping them off just over the state line. It’s not that far from Pelican Bay to the OR line. In fact, it might be beneficial for the Marxist enclaves in OR and WA to “get a taste”.
25%? No problem.
And thanks to Drug War mandatory minimum sentences, it’s illegal to release non-violent drug offenders, so they have to release rapists instead.
They can’t do anything to a Free and Independent State, however if Governor Shriver wasn’t such a wuss he would immediately seize the Assets and Homes of these Federal Judges, and of course All Federal Employees in the State.(using the Kelo Decision) and fund the incarceration of Illegal Aliens in the State. After all it is because of the Failure of The Federal Government that they are here, it is their fault, let them pay.
“Judges do indeed have really big egos. That was my first introduction to them.”
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My experience is extremely limited but I have the same impression.
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