From the early days of statehood, when California’s 30 prisoners were quartered on a prison ship anchored in San Francisco Bay, the state prison population has grown to more than 160,000 inmates in 2010. The recent growth of the inmate population has been dramatic, increasing eightfold from fewer than 20,000 inmates in 1976, the year in which California’s Determinate Sentencing Law (SB 42) passed. Demographics alone cannot explain the growth, as California’s population rose from 23 to 37 million over the same interval. The state spends roughly $10 billion annually to run its corrections facilities (including prisons, incarceration camps and community correctional facilities) and employs more than 62,000 employees to run those facilities. Comparatively, in 1977 there were nine University of California campuses and nine state prisons; today, there are only 10 UC campuses yet 33 prisons.

The past 45 years have witnessed continual and spasmodic ratcheting up of penal retribution in California: punitive “determinate” sentences, mandatory minimums, aggravating sentencing factors, the Three Strikes law and lengthier parole terms (increasing the probability of technical parole violations). The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Plata, 11 C.D.O.S. 6092, held that California’s overcrowded and underfunded prison systems run afoul of federal constitutional standards. The court mandated that California dramatically reduce the state prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two years (down to 109,805 prisoners). The first milestone comes later this month, when the prison population must total fewer than 134,000 inmates.

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