Well, he had to act, being shamed by a court order. But let's hope he does some good.

In a speech at a convention of prosecutors in Newport Beach, Schwarzenegger said that the state prison system has reached "a crisis point" and that he will call a special legislative session this summer to confront the problem. Only the federal prison system is larger than California's system.

Schwarzenegger, who is running for reelection this year, made his speech a week after a federal investigator released a report chiding the governor's administration for not carrying out reforms. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson has already placed the prison medical system under federal receivership.

If he failed to act, the whole prison system could end up under federal control.

The Vera Institute has completed a bipartisan report on our prison system for Congress. 13.5 million people are jailed each year. On any particular day, more than 2.2 million people are locked behind bars. The cost for all this is a staggering $60 billion per year. Not only are our prisons failing them, so is the American public. And while violent crime has dropped, we are not any safer.

"We should be astonished by the size of the prisoner population, troubled by the disproportionate incarceration of African-Americans and Latinos, and saddened by the waste of human potential," the panel said in a report to be presented to Congress on Thursday.

by TChris

The latest numbers in Prison Nation reveal a reliance on incarceration that continues unabated.

Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.

As always, black men are disproportionately incarcerated. As usual, red states lead the way.

In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.

by TChris

TalkLeft has repeatedly (e.g., here, here, and here) called attention to the Census Bureau's unfair practice of counting prisoners as residents of the counties in which the prisons that house them are situated. The practice boosts the population counts of the rural areas in which the prisons are located, which boosts their representation in Congress and state legislatures, and increases their share of government spending. Rural areas tend to vote Republican, so Republicans have little incentive to change the system.

The good news is that courts may be willing to remedy the problem, even if legislators fail to act.

[L]ast week, a federal appeals court in New York hinted that counting prisoners as upstaters might illegally dilute the voting rights of downstaters.

If that legal argument is pursued and upheld, the political implications could be profound. Republicans now have a four-seat margin in the [state] Senate. A shift in only a few seats could give the Democrats, who already control the Assembly, a majority in the Senate, and with it, enormous power over legislative and Congressional redistricting.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy alerts us to this disgusting case of prisoner abuse in Rhode Island:

Three state correctional officers, including a captain who allegedly forced an inmate to taste his own feces on Valentine's Day, were arrested and charged yesterday with multiple counts of assaulting five inmates in the Adult Correctional Institutions.

The arrests were the result of a three-month investigation launched by authorities after prison officials learned about the feces incident involving inmate Michael Walsh, 30, of East Providence. State police Maj. Steven G. O'Donnell said that other inmates came forward with allegations that they suffered physical abuse at the hands of correctional officers. State police detectives interviewed those inmates and were able to corroborate the allegations that resulted in yesterday's charges.

The inmates "were serving short sentences for crimes such as felony shoplifting and drug possession."

by TChris

Marilyn Hubbard thinks the people responsible for her husband's death in the Moss Point jail are being protected. The jailers say Jesse Hubbard hung himself with his T-shirt. Marilyn doesn't believe that her husband, arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct, had any reason to kill himself.

An investigation organized by the Moss Point-Jackson County, Mississippi chapter of the NAACP is shedding new light on Jesse's death.

Benjamin L. Crump, the Hubbard's lawyer, announced the findings with conviction.

"Truth will lead us to justice," he said. "The pathology findings are that it is very unlikely that Mr. Hubbard died from hanging. The medical reports indicate bruising that is inconsistent with hanging."

Wherever Hunter Thompson may be today, he is smiling. Lisl Auman, whose cause Hunter championed, was released from a halfway house this week, having served six months as required by a plea bargain after her conviction for felony murder was thrown out by the Colorado Supreme Court.

Here's how Hunter viewed the task:

It is no small trick to get a "Convicted cop-killer" out of prison -- but it will be a little easier in this case, because Lisl no more killed a cop than I did. She was handcuffed in the backseat of a Denver Police car when the cop was murdered in cold blood by a vicious skinhead who then shot himself in the head & left the D.A. with nobody to punish for the murder -- except Lisl.

You can read more of Hunter on the case in Vanity Fair (free link.)

Update: See the report released last month by the Southern Center for Human Rights.

The Washington Post Saturday reported on an aspect of Hurricane Katrina that needs far greater attention. After Hurricane Katrina, the already dismally underfunded public defender's system suffered more cuts --to the extent that thousands are imprisoned in Parish jails who should not be there - either because the time they've served exceeds the maximum time allowed for the crime, or they have never seen a lawyer and speedy trial rules flew out with the storm.

Here's the current state of the court system:

The criminal justice system here is besieged on all sides. The evidence room was flooded with several feet of water. Witnesses, like half the population, are scattered all over the country. The district court's 13 judges are restricted to holding court in two federal courtrooms available only four days a week. No criminal jury trials have been held since the storm.

As to the prisoners:

by TChris

Conflict between two elements of the Republican base -- corporate donors to the party who argue that immigrants are needed to fill low wage jobs, and extremists who are hostile to permitting anyone who wasn't born in the country to work here -- has Republicans squirming. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher thinks he has an ideal solution: turn the nation's prisons into forced labor camps.

He said businesses should be more creative in their efforts to find help and suggested that employers turn to the prison population to fill jobs in agriculture and elsewhere. "Let the prisoners pick the fruits," Mr. Rohrabacher said. "We can do it without bringing in millions of foreigners."

Jack Abramoff picking strawberries? Not likely. If Rohrabacher's plan were implemented, how long would it be before agribusiness started lobbying for mandatory minimum sentences to assure the availability of a large, stable workforce?

Prison officials in California are uneasy, as they embark on a program to desegregate the states' prisons to comply with a Supreme Court decision.

California's prison population is combustible, divided roughly evenly among three groups: 38% of inmates are Hispanic, 29% are black and 27% white. Recent race-related prison violence in Southern California has focused concerns about thrusting inmates together in biracial cells. For more than a month now, clashes of black and Latino prisoners have gripped Los Angeles county jails, resulting in two deaths and more than 100 injuries.

by TChris

Adam Liptak is doing a wonderful job of covering significant criminal justice issues (like this one) that are overlooked by other reporters. Today he tells the distressing story of female prisoners who are kept in leg shackles as they're giving birth.

Despite sporadic complaints and occasional lawsuits, the practice of shackling prisoners in labor continues to be relatively common, state legislators and a human rights group said. Only two states, California and Illinois, have laws forbidding the practice. The New York Legislature is considering a similar bill.

Prison officials argue that felons are dangerous escape risks, but it's difficult to understand how a woman in labor could flee from a prison guard. Shackling isn't just an indignity; it creates health risks for both the inmate and the newborn child.

by TChris

The City of New York finally agreed to widespread reforms designed to end the abuse of jail inmates by prison guards.

Settling a 2002 lawsuit by the Legal Aid Society, the city agreed to revise its guidelines on when and how guards may use force, post hundreds of new video cameras in the jails, overhaul its procedures for investigating violent episodes and provide more training for guards in how to restrain inmates.

The city will also pay a total of $2.2 million to 22 inmates who were injured in clashes with guards. Inmates in the suit had suffered shattered cheekbones, ruptured eyeballs and split eardrums after officers threw punches at their heads instead of using less damaging control methods.