{"id":242959,"date":"2010-01-28T10:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:criminaljustice.change.org:\/\/137b776cb091cb8fe126dae3a9dd805c"},"modified":"2010-01-28T10:22:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T15:22:00","slug":"the-worlds-overflowing-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/242959","title":{"rendered":"The World’s Overflowing Prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"California is solidly within the public\u2019s gaze this week as it embarks <\/a>on a court-ordered mission to address the state\u2019s chronic prison crowding problem. But when it comes to packed prisons, across the world, the state is far from alone.<\/p>\n

My inbox, thanks to a google alert on \u201cprisons and overcrowding,\u201d is usually fairly overcrowded itself, but lately I\u2019ve noticed a clear spike in news stories around the world on the topic. Italy<\/a> is dealing with the problem, as is Australia<\/a>. Prisons in 33 US states<\/a> are over design capacity, and stories in the press this week looked at the problem in West Virginia<\/a> and South Carolina<\/a>. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em> blasted a plan<\/a> to privatize a local jail in southern New Jersey.\u00a0 In the last two days, Te-Ping Chen has written about a proposed prison ship<\/a> off the U.K.\u2019s coastline and Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s public daydream<\/a> about sending undocumented prisoners to facilities in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Prison crowding is a worldwide epidemic, and we’ve learned during this recession that building new cells won’t solve the problem (through the Corrections Corporation of America may not agree<\/a>). We need to confront this problem directly — by taking steps to support alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenses, to treat drug abuse as a health problem rather than a criminal one, and to make parole, probation and post-release services more effective in order to reduce recidivism. It can be done.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

California may be among the more visible cases of overcrowding, but it’s hardly on track to lead the way in resolving the issue. A little background: After California prisoners filed a civil suit against the state, a federal three-judge panel found that the state was violating prisoners’ constitutional rights by denying them adequate health care. That court ordered the state to reduce its prison population by 40,000<\/a> in order to come into compliance. California appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which recently dismissed the state’s appeal,<\/a> though it left the door open for further review. In other words, the case drags on.<\/p>\n

But California’s current plan for reform sets a poor example. There are facets of the plan that make sense — such as reducing the number of nonviolent parolees sent back to prison for violations, for one. But other aspects of the plan could make the state’s problem worse — like Schwarzenegger’s proposals to privatize<\/a> some state facilities, and to put the corrections budget on autopilot.<\/p>\n

As home to the U.S.’s most high-profile failure of a prison system, California has the unusual opportunity to lead the world as it addresses solutions to address overcrowding. But doing so would take a true commitment to reform. For now, count me unconvinced.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: .:elnico:.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California is solidly within the public\u2019s gaze this week as it embarks on a court-ordered mission to address the state\u2019s chronic prison crowding problem. But when it comes to packed prisons, across the world, the state is far from alone. My inbox, thanks to a google alert on \u201cprisons and overcrowding,\u201d is usually fairly overcrowded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}