US Supreme Court Orders Release of California Inmates
While the benefits of these measures are certainly debatable, one thing is certain, Florida’s prison rolls have swelled during this period, rising to over 100,000 inmates and counting.
And so, the ripple effect of the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision to mandate that the State of California reduce its prison population, which at present has approximately 146,000 inmates, by 33,000, is ground breaking in its scope. As Justice Anthony Kennedy held in his majority decision, the Constitutions’ Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment forbids the current de facto custom of having inmates wait months for medical or mental health treatment. Kennedy seemed particularly vexed by evidence that “as many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet.” Justice Kennedy further concluded that “prisoners retain the essence of human dignity inherent in all persons.”
From a purely federalist perspective, the court’s determination raises serious issues about the role of the federal judiciary with respect to crime, which heretofore has been primarily the province of the individual states to establish what conduct is criminal as well as the appropriate punishment for the same. The counter, however, is that the Supreme Court’s decision is not mandating the appropriateness of crime or punishment, rather, the concern is ensuring that minimal standards of decency are maintained in the manner in which prisoners are housed, fed and treated when sick. This latter point, in particular, has been of critical importance for years as public health officials have warned—often to no avail—about inmates emerging from prison and spreading HIV among the general public.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito exhibited a bit of hyperbole in his dissent, warning that the result will be a “grim roster of victims” while reminding his colleagues that a similar release in Philadelphia during the 1990’s resulted in the re-arrest of thousands of former inmates for myriad crimes ranging from theft to murder.
Despite the predictable backlash from some conservatives, others, including Florida’s ultra conservative Governor Rick Scott, have been receptive to measures to reduce the burden that prison overcrowding poses on already strained state budgets. In the recent Florida legislative session, a measure passed that would privatize 18 prisons in Central and South Florida and save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in the process.
To adhere to the Supreme Court mandate, California is considering placing state inmates in county jail facilities or in sister states with low prison populations. Other reforms include placing non-violent offenders—those serving time for drug possession or property crimes—on electronic monitoring. Such measures not only save taxpayers money, they also decrease recidivism in that they provide inmates with incentives to ensure that their behavior doesn’t place them back behind bricks and barbed wire.
