California Criminal Defense Blog

The California prison population will experience a 27% decrease over the next two years, or at least that’s the plan. A panel of federal judges recently ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population of 150,000 down to about 110,000, citing overcrowding in prisons as resulting in inadequate health care for inmates. California has a period of 45 days to devise a plan for reducing the prisoner population.

According to The New York Timess, “in these overcrowded conditions, inmate-on-inmate violence is almost impossible to prevent, infectious diseases spread more easily, and lockdowns are sometimes the only means by which to maintain control.” In response, The Los Angeles Times reports that “the governor and most legislative leaders back a plan that would reduce prison populations by as many as 37,000 over the next two years using a combination of early releases, changes in parole policies and shifting some prisoners to county jails.” It has also been recommended that the number of incarcerated, nonviolent offenders should be decreased, inciting anger amongst and objection from law enforcement and victims’ rights groups.

Previous plans to reduce the prison population in California seemed to be more concerned over helping reduce the state budget and less concerned with the well-being of prisoners. Critics of reduction for any sort of reason cite public safety as being compromised if prisoners, even if they are nonviolent offenders, are released back into the general population. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the judges ordering the reduction believe that “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.”