Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday he has moved to end a federal court order capping the state's prison population and another that requires intensive oversight of prison mental-health care.
"After decades of judicial intervention in our correctional system and the expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars, the time has come to restore California's rightful control of its prison system," according to Brown, who held news conferences in Los Angeles and Sacramento to announce the effort.
The governor said the state has complied with a federal judge's order to find ways to achieve further reductions in the number of inmates in the state's 33 prisons.
California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation Secretary Jeff Beard said the state's prison health-care system "is now a model for the nation."
"Independent expert reviews have found that California's prison medical and mental health care systems meet constitutional standards," he said. "It would be both unnecessary and unsafe for the courts to order further inmate reductions."
Brown also announced that he has signed a proclamation ending the prison overcrowding emergency that has been in place since 2006. The move will allows the state to begin in July to phase out the use of private out-of-state prison beds for almost 9,000 inmates.
A 1991 federal class-action lawsuit filed by state prison inmates alleged that California's prison mental health care system was unconstitutional. Prior administrations then entered into various consent decrees that set in motion judicial oversight of the prison system.
In the intervening years, California rebuilt its prison mental health care system, investing billions in additional treatment capacity and hiring hundreds of mental health care professionals, Brown said.
Brown said his office has filed federal court documents to end judicial oversight because the mental health care provided to prisoners now exceeds constitutional requirements.
In 2007, the mental-health lawsuit, along with another complaint involving medical care, was assigned to a three-judge court that determined that overcrowding was the primary cause of problems in California's prisons.
Two years later, the court ordered the state to reduce crowding to 137.5 percent of "design capacity." The U.S Supreme Court affirmed that order last year.
Since 2006, the inmate population in the state's prisons has been reduced by more than 43,000 and crowding is down from more than 200 percent to just below 150 percent, Brown said.
More than half of the population decline has taken place since October 1, 2011, as a result of Public Safety Realignment, the governor said.
A state budget watchdog group, however, said the latest filings are an attempt by Brown to dodge the requirements of the court orders.
"If people's lives weren't at stake, claiming that caging one and a half times the people our prisons were built to hold isn't overcrowding would be laughable," according to Diana Zuniga of Californians United for a Responsible Budget. "There are clear, safe ways to bring people back to our communities that would increase public safety and free more funding for social services and the education system the governor claims to value so much."
-City News Service
1:29 pm on Friday, January 11, 2013 if you want to discuss bad things happening while people are in office, lets talk job loss while Obama has been President." . . Might be a good argument if there had actually been a net job loss while Obama has been President. Facts can sometimes be a little inconvenient.
No copy and paste and challenge me! Total dorks! GET A LIFE YOU TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is my McMuffin ready yet?
Despite prevailing stereotype, Whites, not Blacks, collect greatest share of public aid dollars SAY the word “welfare” and immediately the image of the lazy Black welfare queen who breeds for profit surfaces in the minds of those who have come to believe the hideous stereotype. It is a myth that persists despite government figures and authoritative studies showing that Whites overwhelmingly reap the lion’s share of the dole.The image of the Black “welfare cheat,” public aid advocates say, is based on misconceptions about poor minorities. The notion, they say, comes from society’s resentment of seemingly able-bodied people getting paid for doing nothing. Some 61 percent of welfare recipients are White, while 33 percent are Black The federal government defines welfare as all entitlement programs funded through taxes. These programs, listed as “direct benefit payments for individuals” by the Office of Management and Budget, make up $730 billion or 43 percent of the $1.47 trillion the government will spend this fiscal year. Social Security is the nation’s largest welfare program, although many Whites prefer to call it a retirement plan. The government writes retirement and disability benefit checks to 35.4 million recipients of whom 88.7 percent are White and 9.6 percent are Black.
The reason behind this shocking disparity is perhaps the most lamentable of all: The life expectancy rate for Blacks is six years shorter than that of Whites, meaning Black workers spend years paying into a retirement system only to have White retirees reap the benefits for a longer time. Welfare critics rarely search the Social Security rolls for “welfare cheats,” but train their sights on people getting Aid to Families with Dependent Children Medicaid and food stamps, the relief programs with the most Black clients. Yet government figures show that Whites not Blacks make up the bulk of clients on these public aid programs; a fact that dispels the notion that Blacks are scheming for a free lunch courtesy of the American taxpayer. Among the poorest of the poor–single mothers, living below the poverty line with minor children to support 39.7 percent of AFDC clients are Black single mothers and 38.1 percent are White women with children. Food stamp recipients are 37.2 percent Black and 46.2 percent White. Medicaid benefits are paid to 27.5 percent Black recipients compared to 48.5 percent White clients.
Of the 22 states that went to McCain in 2008, 86 percent received more federal spending than they paid in taxes in 2010. In contrast, 55 percent of the states that went to Obama received more federal spending than they paid in taxes. Republican states, on average, received $1.46 in federal spending for every tax dollar paid; Democratic states, on average, received $1.16. Candidate Ron Paul has said that he is happy to see natural disaster victims go without federal help, as was done in his days 100 years ago; (when he was alive, this author believes he is in fact a zombie, thereby void of human feelings) something that many conservatives echo…until they are the victims of a Tornado, flood, or hurricane and consequently become the unwilling, kicking and screaming (wink wink) recipients of FEMA assistance. Aren't we seeing this with the aid for Hurricane Sandy, where Southern State are voting no to the recovery funds while a few years ago they were screaming for funds??
Unemployment affects everyone but you have to have had a job for nine months in order to collect. Social Security and Medicare are paid for retirement benefits that are paid for with salary deductions from workers. You are paid by a mathematical equation of your last years salary. The lower you made the less you receive. But these are considered an entitlement, and they are part of the 47% that June hates.
Why is stating the truth, being a coward???
The simple fact is this state is owned and operated by the unions, the prison guards union is very powerful, prison guards in CA make a fortune .. read this WSJ article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576285471510530398.html Prisoners get excellent healthcare and dental ... better than what many people pay for. There is actually incentive to go to prison for some people .. Prison should be hell ... prisoners should pay for their crimes, it should smell, be nasty, no TV or Internet ... 1 phone call a week, .. there should be a good program to transition / rehab prisoners so they have half a shot at earning a living when they get out ... prisoners should be used as farm labor, private assembly manufacturing work ... instead of warehousing these people, they should be able to work ... bring back assembly work from China, get them to do something productive so they begin to have some pride in what they do ... And with that, I'm off this thread .... have a great weekend people !
9:50 am on Saturday, January 12, 2013 "Heck , we already pay it for the 47% who are not in prison." . . And who exactly makes up this 47%?
9:50 am on Saturday, January 12, 2013 "you are a taker. Roberto and a few of us others are makers! We rock!" . . Liberals promote class warfare?
9:34 am on Saturday, January 12, 2013 "Shane and Carl spin, spin, spin it anyway you want. Do you have any idea how many people are under employed or have dropped out of the job market completely? You both honestly need to pull your heads out of your liberal utopian you live in." . . The facts don't disagree with your current assertion that "people are under employed and have dropped out of the job market completely". Much has to be done to improve the job numbers. However, this doesn't change the fact that your original suggestion that "lets talk job loss while Obama has been President" was completely false.