California Connected Newsroom

The Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News report that a federal judge has given California six more months to properly accommodate its bulging prison population. But if matters do not improve after that time, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton says he may be forced to impose a population cap.

“The prison system now houses more than 172,000 inmates, with many prisons packed at more than 200 percent capacity,” the Chronicle reports. “Inmates have been forced to sleep outside and on floors in some prisons.”

In fact, California’s current prison system was built to handle only about 100,000 inmates. Murder and suicide rates have also increased behind prison walls. Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office says these conditions amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

Critics also argue that overcrowding is in large part due to the state’s harsh “three-strikes” sentencing law, by which nonviolent offenders such as shoplifters and drug addicts can find themselves sentenced to 25 years in prison. Judge Karlton alluded to this on Monday, when he said overcrowding is a political problem that he partially attributes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s support of the state’s tough “three-strikes” system.

To make matters worse, many addicts arrested for nonviolent felonies are locked in prison because they fail drug tests while on probation. As highly addictive drugs like methamphetamine infect more and more communities, addicts in need of aggressive, sustatined rehabilitation only add to the prison burden.

• Treatment vs. Incarceration: Exploring the impact of Proposition 36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 (SACPA), an initiative aimed at rehabilitating rather than incarcerating non-violent drug possession offenders.
• Juvies: A provocative and emotional documentary explores the lives of teen-agers sentenced as adults to life in prison.
• Foster Care and Homeless: What happens to kids in foster care when they turn 18? Many become homeless.
• Mentally Ill Inmates: Why are so many mentally ill Californians treated merely with incarceration?
• 24 Hours on Skid Row: Firefighters call it the “Big Screen”: the front door to Los Angeles Fire Station #9, through which firemen have watched a human tragedy unfold for years. Station #9 sits in the middle of the country’s gravest homeless problem—Los Anegles’s skid row.
• First Person: Angela Alioto: We spoke with Angela Alioto, who was appointed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to write the 10-year plan to take 3,000 chronic homeless people off the street.
• A New Life: Ex-Con Reentry: An ex-con who rescues parolees from the mean streets.
• The Deadliest Drug: California leads the nation in the production of crystal methamphetamine, also known as “crank.” California Connected follows the story of how the brewing meth disaster impacts our children, the environment and law enforcement.
• Auto Theft Alley: Six of the top ten stolen car hotspots are in California. California Connected goes on the spot to investigate what’s behind these high theft rates. We look at the role that the hotrod culture, and also methamphetamine, plays in the crimes.