I’d like to see a breakdown of why all these prisoners are in the slammer. How many are non-violent criminals who could be handled in other ways than locking them up, for example. This is bad news for prison industry stocks.
Federal judges on Monday tentatively ordered California to release tens of thousands of inmates, up to a third of all prisoners, in the next three years to stop dangerous overcrowding.
As many as 57,000 could be let go if the current population were cut by the maximum percentage considered by a three-judge panel. Judges said the move could be done without threatening public safety — and might improve a public safety hazard.
The state immediately said it would appeal the final ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[...]
“There is no relief other than a prisoner release order that can remedy the constitutionally inadequate medical and mental health care,” the panel led by Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt, wrote.“The state has a number of options, including reform of the earned credit and parole systems, that would serve to reduce the population of the prison to whatever percentage is ultimately determined to be appropriate without adversely affecting public safety,” the judges wrote.
The panel ordered the state to consult with the prisoners’ lawyers to consider what actions to take.
With the economy what it is, how many states and cities are looking at releasing prisoners to save money? Maybe this is the way to free pot smokers in those draconian states that put people in prison for puffing.
15,
New York improved via “broken windows” neighborhood efforts that cleaned up the city, not by insane levels of incarceration. No soup for you.
#21, Really?
“While Bratton was police commissioner, Amnesty International released a report citing the NYPD for human rights violations. During a recent appearance on WBSM’s open line, Bratton dismissed the Amnesty Report as having no merit. Yet the report is quite revealing. Using the “Police Department’s own statistics,” Amnesty found that in Bratton’s first year in office, there was “a 34 percent increase in civilians shot dead,” and “a 53.3 percent increase in civilians shot dead in police custody” as well as “an increase in the number of civilians injured from officer’s firearms discharge during the same period.”
paddyo, a more interesting stat would be how many murder convictions of police there were. It could be misleading to say that the stats went up when there were more people moving through the system.
#16
Agreed- weed is not addicting and certainly less harmful than tobacco and alcohol and should be removed from the controlled substances list.
I was thinking in terms of coke, ecstasy, etc.
We are just screwed!! Someday soon these states will have to bring up the bad words tax increase. Otherwise some basic services will just go away. How sad is that!!
Just makes me glad I moved out of California.
California is really messed up, but that isn’t the issue here. We have more people locked up per capita and in absolute terms than just about any where else. Although violent crime has had a long downward trend for DECADES the average US citizen feels less safe than ever.
The prison system makes huge profits for both institutional construction and provisioning companies. Because these companies are public companies they are required to increase their business, which they accomplish through intense lobbying for tougher anti-crime legislation.
My ideal system: soft drugs and victimless crimes regulated via “safe zones” al a Vancouver. When you people get violent, however, there is plenty of space in the prisons to keep them for extended periods.
There is a crazy guy that lives down the street from me. He shoots guns off and chases cars, and even once attempted a carjacking. He gets out after a few weeks because his family has money, and because he never gets caught with large amounts of drugs. He has tried burning down his house several times.
There are real villains out there, but the police can’t respond properly because they are too busy chasing BS offenses. Neighborhood people have tried to interest the authorities and they tell us exactly that. Sad, expensive, and stupid.
Who is #1 !!!!!!! You are, #9
We miss Patrick McGoohan
RIP!
#28: You know that they are doing a remake of The Prisoner, don’t you?
They should let the marijuana offenders out for this reason alone:
http://tinyurl.com/59buo3
@Special Ed
I am pretty sure that web page is false. I a sure you could score some weed at the DEA. I bet they have “evidence” rooms full of it.
Its not only expensive for the taxpayer to incarcerate human beings for profit, its immoral.
All the pointy heads out there have no problem paying taxes to lock up some harmless stoner but when it comes to helping people (ie socialized medicine), suddenly the wallets clam up.
chris, so you’re solution for the problem of business colluding with government to make laws that favor specific businesses is to legalize drugs and change how we deal with non violent criminals? I don’t see how these two things relate. Both are problems, but they don’t solve each other.
#32, So should we have fines for speeding? Or is it moral for government to make money but not a private company?
Uncle Dave : I shudder at the thought of the remake. Somethings are best left alone. (BTW I once had the pleasure of spending a day at the village in Wales where the original was filmed.)
Paddy-O : I believe Amnesty Unrational also claimed Miss Muffet tortured the spider by taunting it with curds and whey. Their definitions of human (or spider) rights are sometimes rather broad and their statistics are often skewed. Not that your point is not well taken.
I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn’t be incarcerating victimless crime. In fact many of those crimes shouldn’t be crimes and we could save a lot of court cost too.
But for violent crime I have a very easy cost effective solution — outsource the job to China. I’ll bet the chinese could do the service for a tenth the price it’s costing us. $5,000 a year instead of $50,000.
#7, Cow-Patty,
#6. Hope you’re kidding. You can be jailed for debt.
Retard, you can not be arrested or imprisoned for debt in the United States. If a collection agency told you that, they are just lying.
# 37 Mr. Fusion said, “Retard, you can not be arrested or imprisoned for debt in the United States. ”
Would you like to bet on that? We won’t bet $. I’ll bet that there is a mechanism in the US to put someone in jail for debt. And, not for failure to pay taxes.
If you lose, you (or your sock puppets), never post on this site again…
#37 Confusion.
Well, would you like to bet? Or, are you afraid to stand behind your 4th grade education?