Prisons Overcrowding

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block, in response to a federal court directive to control jail crowding, said Wednesday he will begin immediately releasing about 1,200 pretrial inmates being held on bail of $2,500 or less. Block, whose department runs the county's jails, pledged to release more inmates if necessary by shortening sentences of those convicted of minor crimes. "I am not about to place myself or county government in a position where they can be cited for contempt," he said.

The early release of inmates in some parts of California is accelerating as officials at county jails struggle to accommodate state prisoners flowing into their facilities. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department planned to begin releasing about 150 inmates Friday because of overcrowding in county jails. Sheriff Rod Hoops has decided to release the inmates, mostly parole violators or those convicted of nonviolent crimes, over the next five days. The inmates must have served at least half of their sentence, and have less than 30 days remaining on their sentence.

The Supreme Court gave prosecutors an important edge in child abuse cases Wednesday, ruling that doctors, police officers or family members who talk to an abused child may testify in the child's place during a trial. In a second ruling favoring the government, the high court Wednesday made it easier for cities and states to escape the demands of strict court orders aimed at easing prison overcrowding.

The boring, bureaucratic word "realignment" masks the truly dramatic change in locking up California criminals that Gov. Jerry Brown just pulled off. "A lot of people say, 'Hey, what's new in Sacramento?'" Brown told a news conference last week. "Well, this is new. It's bold. It's difficult. And it will continuously change as we learn from experience. "But we can't sit still and let the courts release 30,000 serious prisoners. We have to do something. " In truth, the change was inevitable.

It is penal service hiding behind coy euphemisms. Work release. Celebrity diversion. Special programs. They are, in essence, chain gangs without shackles. "I sentence a lot of people to work with Caltrans," said a Los Angeles municipal court commissioner. "Because it is hard work that in the heat of summer becomes hard labor."

A densely populated, self-contained village--known to many residents as el pueblito de La Mesa --thrives behind four whitewashed concrete walls amid a busy residential neighborhood in this border city.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court, responding to charges that its foot-dragging on criminal cases causes overcrowding in the county's jails, Thursday released surveys showing that the proportion of jail inmates awaiting trial is actually decreasing and that the court handles cases faster than most urban courts nationwide. A study begun by Frank S.

Ted Peal knew the time would come when he'd have to serve the 14 days in jail. He had known it since the judge sentenced him last spring after the cops arrested him right in front of his house for driving under the influence. And this week, when the time came--well, something had changed. Time. Time had changed. Math had changed. Einstein was right--it was all relative. The 14 days in County Jail was no longer 14 days.

There will be no pink underwear. Late last year, officers from San Bernardino County's Central Juvenile Hall, the state's most crowded youth jail, took a trip to Arizona. About to become the first in California to house juvenile inmates in military-style tents, they arrived in Maricopa County, Ariz., where Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs famously unpleasant jails, forcing inmates to wear pink underwear, eat green bologna and live in tents that outrage civil rights activists.

No nighttime reading is allowed for youths forced to sleep in makeshift dormitories at the San Fernando Valley Juvenile Hall because guards fear that something as innocuous as a book or magazine could conceal a weapon. With the hall's population 45% over capacity, even the most minor fight has the potential for escalating out of control.

Reporting from Sacramento -- California is unlikely to meet a federal court mandate to reduce its prison population by 34,000 inmates within two years, so state officials should ask for more time, the Legislature's top advisor said Friday. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor also challenged Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to reduce the number of inmates sent to out-of-state contract prisons, saying California instead should consider exporting more felons. "The administration's push to reduce the number of these out-of-state beds while at the same time reducing overcrowding in the prisons makes little sense at the present time in our view," said the report by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Bringing back ROTC Re "Campuses welcome back a '60s outcast," June 1 I was a member of the "outcast" Naval ROTC at Stanford. At the time I was opposed to the Vietnam War, and 30 years later, I was opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But I remain strongly supportive of ROTC programs. National defense is a public good, and ROTC programs enable more students to help bear the substantial personal and national cost of it. The United States faces a danger from terrorism for the foreseeable future, and we should provide more opportunities for all members of society to participate in the defense of our country.

A New York message Re "Medicare plan may have cost GOP a seat," May 25 Democrat Kathy Hochul took a House seat away from the Republicans in a very conservative district in New York, and most folks think it was because Republicans want to turn Medicare into a private voucher program. There were, in fact, many other issues. Polling in the district showed that voters were equally concerned with the lack of jobs created by the newly elected House majority. In addition, voters throughout the country are upset that Republicans refuse to discard the huge tax cut for the very wealthy and their refusal to end big tax breaks for oil companies.

Gov. Jerry Brown is a reluctant prison reformer; in his former job as attorney general, he fought hard to stave off a federal court order requiring the state to reduce its inmate population. But with Monday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding that order, Brown can't put off the big decisions anymore — and neither can the Legislature, which has been ignoring the prison problem for decades. Perhaps because he understood the weakness of his own case, Brown seems to have been prepared for Monday's ruling in Brown vs. Plata, in which a 5-4 Supreme Court majority agreed that California's prison conditions were so bad that they violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The suicide rate in California's overcrowded prisons is nearly twice the national average, and one inmate dies every eight days from inadequate medical care. These are just two indicators cited in the 15-year legal battle over whether the state's prisons are failing to provide humane medical care for the 165,000 inmates. On Tuesday, the problems of California's prisons will move to a national stage when the Supreme Court hears the state's challenge to an extraordinary court order that would require the prison population to be reduced by about 25% in two years.

Obama and the spill Re "Obama calls on nation to alter its ways," June 16, and " BP will create fund to pay claims," June 17 President Obama's speech from the Oval Office on the oil spill was by far the worst speech I have ever seen during a major national crisis. But his results from paying hardball with BP's oil leases in getting money for the American victims of the oil spill now are unprecedented. The victims of the Exxon Valdez spill had to wait 20 years to receive a pittance.

Eight inmates of the San Bernardino County Jail, assisted by lawyers of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued in U.S. District Court here Monday to force relief from jail overcrowding and alleged mistreatment of prisoners. Spokesmen for the San Bernardino County sheriff's office declined to comment on the legal complaint, which they said they had not yet seen. But they did acknowledge that the inmate population is running at about 1,200, almost twice the jail's designed capacity of 664.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fought against having to give federal judges a plan to reduce state prison overcrowding, but he lost. The proposal his administration must present by today's court-ordered deadline is likely to reflect a reluctance to take direction from the court. In recent weeks the governor advocated in vain for lawmakers to ratify a plan that would have helped reduce the state budget and cut the prison population by nearly 40,000 within two years, as a panel of three federal judges has demanded.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday asked a panel of federal judges to delay their order that the state produce a plan to reduce prison crowding, saying he would take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court if they did not grant the request. In the motion filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the governor said the order should be delayed pending an appeal to be filed Thursday in the Supreme Court, arguing that the state would probably win in the nation's high court. The order was issued Aug. 4 by judges overseeing two lawsuits filed by inmates complaining of inadequate medical and mental health treatment.