California Ordered to Reduce Prison Populations

I knew there was a reason I had dual residency in California, and it was for more than the medical marijuana prescription.

An enlightened court has made yet another progressive decision, declaring that inmates in need of medical and mental health care, are well... human beings.

The California prison system must reduce overcrowding by as many as 55,000 inmates within three years to provide a constitutional level of medical and mental health care, a federal three-judge panel tentatively ruled Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10prison.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Federal judges have already ruled that the state’s failure to provide medical and mental health care is killing at least one inmate every month and has subjected inmates to cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Constitution.

It is a controversial decision, surely will be appealed by Attorney General Gerry Brown, a former liberal governor, but it raises a panoply of issues relating to our criminal justice system.

For a moment, I forget the name of the author, was it Camus?, who once wrote 'If you want to judge a society's integrity, look at its prisons?''

The penalty for a crime is supposed to be incarceration and a deprivation of freedom, not degradation and a denial of your rights as a human being.