Close ruling on prison crowding likely for Supreme Court?

[unhappycamper]

Close ruling on prison crowding likely for Supreme Court?
By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, November 30, 2010

WASHINGTON — Arguments over a judicial order to slash California's prison population exposed sharp divisions Tuesday among Supreme Court justices.

In a closely watched case, Republican appointees challenged the proposed prisoner-release plan as a threat to public safety while Democratic appointees suggested it was necessary to alleviate horrific penal conditions.

The ideological divisions in evidence during an unusually long oral argument probably foreshadow another difficult decision for a court that frequently splits along 5-4 lines. The argument also underscores the high stakes and heated emotions in a pair of long-running prison overcrowding cases.

"When are you going to avoid the needless deaths?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Carter G. Phillips, the attorney for California. "When are you going to avoid or get around people sitting in their own feces for days in a dazed state?"

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the pictures of California prison conditions "are pretty horrendous," while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stressed that one of the overcrowding cases considered Tuesday began in 1990.

[madrchsod]

1. the chicago tribune had a graph of the increase since 1980

unfortunately i can`t find it but...the graph follows the time line of the de-industrialization of our country and especially our major industrial centers.

no one wants to talk about that.