The solution for California is simple: Joe Arpaio-style tent jails in the desert. By international laws, military style field conditions are *not* a violation of human rights. And they cost just a fraction of “brick” jails.
This not only solves California’s prison overcrowding problem, but provides much more space per inmate, and with multiple facilities allows for segregation and separation of gang members. Numerous subsections of the tent cities can be split off with internal fences, like cell blocks, and particularly troublesome prisoners can even be individually isolated.
As a resident of Palm Desert, CA, I have been calling for this for years. The desert between Indio and Blythe along the I10 corredor is vacant. You could locate a prison halfway between these two communities and 10 miles north or south of the interstate.
The prisoners would live in non-airconditioned tents surrounded by three barbed wire fences and lots of sensing devices. Their job each day would be to move sand from Point A to Point B. Then reverse the process the following day. No TV, no workout equipment, and plain food.
I will bet that very few would ever want to come back again, and the state would save a bundle in the cost of housing prisoners. But we will never see the day because the bleeding hearts in state government would never allow it.
Plus it could help feed the wildlife in the area for those who try to escape ... a win-win for everyone. PETA would be proud.