"Calif. prisoner reduction upheld; High court says conditions violate inmates’ rights" May 24, 2011|By Adam Liptak, New York Times
WASHINGTON — Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, described a prison system that failed to deliver minimal care to prisoners with serious medical and mental health problems and produced “needless suffering and death.’’
Hey, world, we have OUR OWN TORTURE DUNGEONS right here at home!
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Suicide rates in the state’s prisons, Kennedy wrote, have been 80 percent higher than the national average. A lower court in the case said it was “an uncontested fact’’ that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.’’
Oh, the place is WORSE than GITMO!!
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Prison release orders are rare and difficult to obtain, and even advocates for prisoners’ rights said yesterday’s decision was unlikely to have a significant impact around the nation.
State officials in California will have two years to comply with the order, and they may ask for more time. Kennedy emphasized that the reduction in population need not be achieved solely by releasing prisoners early. Among the other possibilities, he said, are new construction, transfers out of state, and using county facilities....
More taxpayer dollars in bankrupt California for prisons, not schools.
And who wants to accept $omeone el$e$ pri$oner$?
Maybe we need LESS LAWS!
Let's DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS and NONVIOLENT CRIMES and LET THEM OUT FIRST!
Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged that “particular prisoners received shockingly deficient medical care.’’
I'm for single payer, but if prisons are the example....
But, he added, “such anecdotal evidence cannot be given undue weight’’ in light of the sheer size of California’s prison system, which was at its height “larger than that of many medium-sized cities’’ such as Bridgeport, Conn.; Eugene, Ore.; and Savannah, Ga.
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Even looks like a Gitmo, unis and all.
Related: Hundreds of Calif. paroles called improper
Also see: Crystal Cathedral in Calif. files for bankruptcy
