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California's Prison State

By Jonathan Simor

California in the early 21st century, looks like a casebook example of a "carceral state", or a state that has placed imprisonment at the heart of its practices of governing. With 180,000 prisoners, twice as many prisoners locked up as its own design specifications very liberally allow, California has a massive human rights crisis on its hands and an impending show down in federal court over whether population caps will be imposed. Notwithstanding its failings, the prison system already absorbs more of the state budget than all of higher education and much more will be required to bring it up to constitutional standards. Keeping the prisons full is an ever growing body of laws, many of them added by ballot initiatives, which provide long prison sentences for a wide range of serious and petty crimes...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on January 18, 2008 (boomark / email).