The court said in a 5-4 decision that the reduction is "required by the Constitution" to correct longstanding violations of inmates' rights to adequate care for their mental and physical health.
From an AP story about today split decision against the California Prison System, ordering prisoner releases one one kind or another after years of overcrowding.
Et tu Alabama?
We have extraordinary prison overcrowding in Alabama---twice the number of prisoners the facilities were built to hold---maybe more crowded than California. Yet neither the public nor the public's representatives in The Legislature have been willing to do what it takes to either reduce the population or increase the number of beds.
Instead we take temporary measures that do one one or the other, just long enough to avert a complete crisis.
Just yesterday there was an editorial in the conservative Birmingham News urging action.
If ever there was a wake up call for Legislators it was today's decision, showing that even the current relatively conservative U.S. Supreme Court will take action to protest the constitution rights that prisons retain, even if they are behind bars.
Another lesson from today's decision is the importance of the 2012 Presidential Election to both parties. The winner will likely have two or three Supreme Court nominations to change the current 5-4 split.
This blog has written about prison overcrowding before, like the slight measure the state took allowing the DOC to release terminally ill prisoners who then become a burdeon on Federal tax dollars. Now there's a legitimate strategy!
The problem is, no politician has ever been elected promising to reduce prison overcrowding. And reelection is the only incentive many politicians have, as opposed to acting with the the long-term good of the state in mind.
Better we just wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to do it for us.
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