I've been attending the
California prison law suit brought by mentally ill prisoners who have alleged that the care they received in prison is so poor it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The cast of characters in this particular drama is as follows: the plaintiffs are the prisoners and the defendant is the state of California. There is a three judge panel hearing the case, and they are very much on the side of the plaintiffs, often ignoring or swatting away any objections offered by the defendants.
The original action was brought on April 5, 2001. Along the way, one of the federal judges hearing the present case decided that the only way California would improve its prisoner treatment was if he
assigned an outsider to take control.
The narrow question that the prisoners must answer in the positive in the three to four weeks of testimony is: does the overcrowding of California's prisons cause the constitutionally deficient care the prisoners receive? California has about 172,000 inmates, almost double its prison capacity. Plaintiffs seek to limit the population of California's 33 prisons to 104,000, requiring the release of 52,000 inmates to county jails, treatment centers and parole. If the judges are convinced by the plaintiffs, they will order a cap on the maximum prisoner population and could leave it to the state to figure out what to do with the excess prisoners.
Testimony from the plaintiff's and the defendant's witnesses converge on several points. California has one of the most overcrowded, overburdened prison systems in the country. According to one witness for the defense, every year around 140,000 prisoners go into the system, and 140,000 come out of the system. The average stay of an inmate is less than a year.
Condensing all of the testimony and evidence into the narrow quesiton presented by the court poses a challenge for both sides. Today Judge Henderson told the plaintiff during his cross examination that his lengthy questioning of the witness was "torturing us."
However one views the massive evidence and testimony, the real missed opportunity here seems to be the questions not being asked.
If all goes according to plaintiff's plans, the judges will find that prison overcrowding is the cause of the horrible, non-existent care that the inmates receive. Let us assume for a moment that such a decision will not be appealed to the Supreme Court (it will). The three judge panel will order the state of California to cap its prison population at 104,000.
California will then decide how to decide who to let out. Should they release those prisoners who are least likely to commit another crime? It turns out that the prisoners who commit "low level" offenses like property crimes are far more likely to commit another crime than a second degree murderer.
Is the criteria for release who is most likely to return to prison or who has committed the least objectionable crime?
Which brings me to my point: a very high percentage of prisoners that commit property and other low level crimes do so to satisfy their addiction to drugs. They commit crime because they cannot afford to satisfy their addiction. So, many "low level" offenders commit more crimes because they crave more drugs.
We the taxpayer are supporting a system that finds it wise to spend over $40,000 per year on someone because they committed a crime to feed a drug habit. How much would it cost to maintain that "criminal" on a regime of his addicted drug and provide him with job counseling? How much would be saved in property crimes prevented because the "criminal" did not have to steal to get a drug, not to mention the exorbitant costs of incarceration? How many lives would be saved by sparing thousands from the prison system?
In Switzerland, crime by heroin addicts has fallen 60 per cent since an initiative to allow health clinics to administer controlled doses of the drug began 14 years ago, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. Swiss voters just passed a
landmark law to provide free heroin to registered addicts.
Imagine if the federal judiciary could convene a three judge panel that asks a slightly broader question: "Is drug prohibition, three strikes, and the imposition of three years of parole on every released prisoner the cause of the prison overcrowding crises in the state of California?" Starting with the proposition that from 1982 to 2000, California's prison population grew at a rate of 500%, I think the plaintiffs would have a strong case.
Posted by J. Gibson Verkuil