Steve Chapman
In his magisterial book “The Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn recited in gruesome detail the mistreatment of inmates in prison camps in the Soviet Union. “As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet,” he wrote. “Up to 50 sick inmates may be held together in a 12- by 20-foot cage for up to five hours awaiting treatment.”
Mentally ill convicts go untreated until they “suffer from severe hallucinations” and fall “into catatonic states.” Suicidal inmates are “held for prolonged periods in telephone-booth sized cages without toilets.” Some prisoners die for lack of medical care, and others kill themselves.
Actually, those quotes are not from Solzhenitsyn. They’re from the U.S. Supreme Court decision last week on California’s grossly overcrowded penal system. A majority of the justices decided that when a state approaches Stalinist standards of barbarity, something has to be done.
The state admitted years ago that its treatment of inmates violated the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments.” After years in which the problem went unrepaired, the court ran out of patience. It ordered California to reduce its prison population, which now stands at around 145,000, by anywhere from 33,000 to 46,000 inmates.
You may assume mobs of cutthroats will soon be let out to rape and pillage. Dissenting Justice Samuel Alito predicted “a grim roster of victims.” Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento urged Californians: “Buy a gun. Get a dog.”
But before locals go mad with panic, they might consider some reassuring facts. One is that California doesn’t have to liberate any inmates. It can keep them all confined, as long as it’s willing to provide the space and services to meet minimum requirements of humane treatment.
As the Supreme Court helpfully noted, the state can open more prisons, place convicts in county jails or ship them to states with vacant cells. Those options cost money, but there’s nothing to stop nervous voters from demanding higher taxes to pay for them.
As it happens, many of those serving time in California never had “victims.” Nearly 25,000 of them are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses — mostly simple possession or possession for sale.
via Steve Chapman commentary: California can incarcerate less and be safer – chicagotribune.com.
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