Was flipping through headlines and news blurbs on Yahoo the other day, and when I first saw this one, I was almost 100% certain that someone had stolen it from The Onion:
Supreme Court Reviews Federal Court Order that Could Reduce California Prison Population
The story went on to say that the Supreme Court was going to hear arguments in regard to a Special Federal Court Decision that had decided that over-crowding in California's prisons had reached a point where it could be considered 'Cruel and Unusual Punishment', violating the 8th Amendment of the Constitution, so the state of California was ordered to release 40,000 in-mates to reduce prison populations.
My thought was somebody came up with a real zinger of an original parody article.
Then I did some research and found out that not only was this really happening, but it had been happening since August of 2009, which was when the the Special Panel told California it had two years to get it's prisons down to 137.5% capacity to meet the 'Cruel and Unusual Punishment' standard. Not sure where they got that number...doubtless a number of experts pulled it out of someplace dank, dark and smelly.
After the first days hearing, the Supreme Court seems split on the issues, with the liberal types saying 'let them go', and the conservative types expressing reservations about the safety of the public in California when 40,000 in-mates are dumped onto the street. Duh.
Obviously,the population of people in California prisons does need to be decreased...I just have a different idea of how to accomplish it that than 'letting 40,000 of them roam the streets where law-abiding Californians find it very difficult to get concealed carry permits and can't have more than 10-rounds in a pistol magazine to defend themselves'.
So...Wikipedia(not the most reliable source, but lacking a crack research staff, it's the best I can do, cap'ain.) says that in 2007 there were 170,588 inmates in the Adult Division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which had proper facilities for 83,000 people. 137.% of that is 114, 125...meaning we need to reduce 2007 population by...56463.
Alright...Wikipedia first of says that 17% of the inmate population were born abroad...so that's easy...send them back to their homeland! If they don't want them back, too bad...push them out of the plane. If you want, you can even give them a parachute. That's 29,000 right there...over half-way to our target number!!!!
According to a 2004 study by The Sentencing Project, a D.C Based Research and Advocacy Group(excuse me, need to wash my hands after typing that), 11% of prisoners are serving life sentences. 11% of our remaining population is 15575 people. PUT THEM IN THE GROUND!!!!!!!!!! Now we are down to a population of 125914...under 12,000 to go to our target mark.
Okay...manipulating some DOJ numbers let's us find out that as of 2000(good made up stats that support my argument are hard to find) 20.5% of people are in jail for non-violent victimless crime. As a libertarian, I am 100% fine with ANYTHING you want to do to your body...not just cannabis. But, if you choose to snort cocaine, don't expect private(or public) health care to take care of your rotted nose. So...20.5 percent of our remaining number is roughly 25,000 people...getting us down to a remaining prison population of...100,000 inmates, or only 120% of it's capacity.
Dammit, I am a genius! California's Legislative Analysis Office calculates that it costs $47102 to incarcerate a prisoner. My way of doing things reduced the population by 14,000 more than they needed to...saving the state $659,428,000 off of their 2009 DOCR budget of 10.4 BILLLION dollars. Since it is for the good of the people of California, I will let the state use my idea for only 5% of those savings....
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