California's Great Prison Experiment

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/174680/californias-great-prison-experiment


Overcrowding in a California prison. Courtesy Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP
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On February 22, 1998, Pete Gallagher arrived at Building 13 at Solano State Prison in Vacaville, California. It was Gallagher’s thirteenth year behind bars, and he’d already done time in Chino, Folsom, San Quentin and, most recently, the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility outside San Diego. Building 13 was large, open, fluorescent-lit and crammed with double bunks. Inmates were everywhere. It reminded Gallagher of a warehouse or a military barracks. He took one look, then found a corrections officer. “I’m not going to live like this,” he told him. “Take me to the hole.”

But for the next fourteen years, Gallagher, who is on parole and did not want his real name used, did live like that, and he watched as conditions deteriorated further: triple bunks replaced doubles, and new bodies filled the new beds. No toilets or sinks were added. The law library became too cramped to use, and visiting hours were chaos. Men died from the miserable healthcare: one from an abscessed tooth, another from hepatitis C. “If you weren’t ambulatory, you didn’t go to the doctor,” Gallagher says.

By 2006, the California prison system had reached a crisis point: built to house 80,000 inmates, it held more than twice that number. “It was like the USSR,” says Jim Mayer, executive director of California Forward, a nonpartisan government reform group. “It was going to implode on itself.” A few years later, a three-judge panel handed down a dramatic ruling in response to two federal class-action lawsuits filed by inmates: the first, from 1990, claimed that mentally ill prisoners did not have access to minimal care; the second, filed eleven years later, described similar conditions for regular medical treatment. The panel found that inmates had been subject to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The judges ordered California to shrink its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates. The state appealed, but on May 23, 2011, the US Supreme Court upheld the order in a landmark ruling, Brown v. Plata. By June 27, 2013, the Court ruled, California’s prisons would have to look very different.

So began “realignment,” an unprecedented overhaul of California’s thirty-three prisons, described as the largest criminal justice experiment ever conducted in America. Tens of thousands of low-level offenders would be kept in their hometowns instead of being shipped to state prisons. Law enforcement would seek smarter, cheaper justice models. That, at least, was the theory. And while the Court’s deadline has since been pushed from June to December, the question remains: Is California doing enough to reverse its prison crisis?



Read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/174680/californias-great-prison-experiment#ixzz2Vig3LOia

[BeyondGeography]

1. What a photo

What could possibly go wrong?

[xchrom]

2. indeed. it's frightening. nt

[Le Taz Hot]

3. The full name of California's correctional organization is

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Where's the "rehabilitation" part? Address that and the incarceration numbers go WAY down.

[Fumesucker]

4. Crowd mice too much and it first kills their society and then it kills them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun

In July 1968 four pairs of mice were introduced into the Utopian universe. The universe was a 9-foot (2.7 m) square metal pen with 54-inch-high (1.4 m) sides. Each side had four groups of four vertical, wire mesh “tunnels”. The “tunnels” gave access to nesting boxes, food hoppers, and water dispensers. There was no shortage of food or water or nesting material. There were no predators. The only adversity was the limit on space.

Initially the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55 days. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which the population growth dropped markedly. The last surviving birth was on day 600. This period between day 315 and day 600 saw a breakdown in social structure and in normal social behavior. Among the aberrations in behavior were the following: expulsion of young before weaning was complete, wounding of young, inability of dominant males to maintain the defense of their territory and females, aggressive behavior of females, passivity of non-dominant males with increased attacks on each other which were not defended against. After day 600 the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed “the beautiful ones”.
The conclusions drawn from this experiment were that when all available space is taken and all social roles filled, competition and the stresses experienced by the individuals will result in a total breakdown in complex social behaviors, ultimately resulting in the demise of the population.

[xchrom]

6. +1

[davidpdx]

5. The prison overcrowding is rediculous

Not only are there the medical problems, but also mental health issues. People with all that time on their hands get creative and violent stabbing and killing others. The word rehabilitation really doesn't mean much anymore.