Federal judges seeking to improve prison medical care called the state's latest efforts insufficient Monday and ordered creation of a three-judge panel to consider capping California's inmate population.
The move — the first for a state prison system — has the potential to prompt early release of inmates. Experts and elected officials, however, said that less-drastic measures might appease federal courts and that releases, if necessary, could be made in ways that minimize any threat to the public.
The rulings are an escalation of federal intervention in California's prisons, which now house nearly 173,000 inmates, 17,000 of them in gymnasiums, day rooms, classrooms and other areas not designed as dormitories. Prompted by class-action lawsuits on behalf of inmates, federal courts have declared the level of medical and mental health care in the prison system unconstitutional and turned over healthcare operations to a court-appointed receiver.
Inmates' attorneys sued to request a population cap in November 2006, five weeks after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the prisons. The lawyers suggested that instead of releasing thousands of prisoners, state officials could use home detention, electronic monitoring or residential drug treatment programs to divert low-risk convicts and parole violators from prison.
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