California gets two more years to reduce the inmate population in state prisons.
A panel of three federal judges released its decision on Feb. 10. The deadline for reducing the population to 37.5 percent above capacity was originally set for June 2013 and extended to February 2014.
The court granted the extension based on the state threatening to send thousands of California prisoners to out-of-state facilities if forced to meet the deadline.
“This solution is neither durable nor desirable,” the judges wrote in the decision. “It would result in thousands of prisoners being incarcerated hundreds or thousands of miles from the support of their families, and in hundreds of millions of dollars that could be spent on long-lasting prison reform being spent instead on temporarily housing prisoners out of state.”
Prison population in the state is currently 44 percent over capacity, and one of the only measures that’s been taken since the 2009 order to decrease population is realignment, which transports to county jails criminals convicted of non-serious, non-violent crimes.
The two-year extension includes a series of benchmarks that need to be met—the first of which is in June 2015—and a compliance officer, who will have the ability to release prisoners if California fails to meet one of the benchmarks. The state has agreed not to appeal the decision any further as part of the order.
Although the judges wrote that they were reluctant to extend the timeline, they said it was necessary to ensure that a long-term solution to prison overcrowding is found. The original order was dished out based on “the unconstitutional condition of mental and medical health care in California prisons.”
“California prisoners deserve far better treatment than they have received,” the judges wrote. “Resolving the conditions in California prisons for the long run, and not merely for the next few months, is of paramount importance to this court as well as to the people of the state.”
This article appears in Feb 13-20, 2014.