(bump. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Because, you know, they are ToughOnCrimeTM. 31 Assembly Republicans have filed to intervene, a legal procedure that would allow them to participate in the case, in the prison class action lawsuit.
Thirty-one Assembly Republicans filed the motion in U.S. District Court asking, in essence, for more time to solve the crowding problem. According to the motion, a prison bill approved in May will help improve conditions in California's 33 prisons, where more than 173,000 inmates live in facilities built for 100,000. The $7.8 billion plan calls for 53,000 new prison and jail cells. Last month, federal judges in two class-action suits involving the impact of crowding on inmate medical and mental health care ordered a three-judge panel to recommend solutions to the crisis. In the process, the judges rejected the state's proposal and suggested that it would make matters worse for the prison system.
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“We're the ones who appropriate the money. We're the ones who write the laws with respect to corrections, and we're not even at the table,” [Asm. Todd] Spitzer, R-Orange, said Monday. “That is unconscionable.”
More of the same from Spitzer over the flip
Spitzer, for his part, is doing his best to make sure he can play to his reactionary constituents. Of course, the fact that the Republican party, and the Assembly Republicans, and really the Legislature as a whole, has made the situation so bad, has no impact on his thinking. He can't fathom the possibility that just locking more and more people up can't be a good thing. That's being ToughOnCrimeTM! That must be good!
“The three-judge panel is getting set to act under a federal prison cap statute that has never been tested in any state in the nation to date. California would be the first,” Spitzer said in a written statement. “Any early release would jeopardize public safety and make a mockery of a system where sentences are expected to be fully served.”
Sentences must be served! We made irrational sentences for these people and they must serve them! Must! I am Tough! I drive a Dodge Stratus!