Cruel and Unusual Punishment
I wonder if the new Conservative government is paying attention to what’s happening in California.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the conditions in California’s prisons are so bad that they amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy described a prison system that was overcrowded to bursting, where prisoners with serious medical and psychological problems were neglected, resulting in needless suffering and death.
According to a lower court decision, “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.” Suicides in Californian jails are 80% higher that the national average.
The Supreme Court ruling affirmed an order requiring state officals to reduce the prison population to 110,000 inmates. At times there have been more than 160,000 inmates in the system. Currently there are more than 140,000.
Needless to say, the decision is controversial. Justice Antonin Scalia gave a rare oral dissent, calling the order “the most radical injunction issued by court in our nation’s history,” and stating that “the majority is gambling with the safety of the people of California.”
It is unclear how the state of California will react to the order. Clearly Californian Legislators will have to take a look at alternatives to incarceration, such as house arrest and electronic monitoring.
Is this where Canada is headed when the mandatory minimum sentences become law? It is clear that California’s experiment with mandatory jail sentences has not been a successful one. We seem to be following them down this discredited path.