d**n
发帖数: 3172 | 7 看来我的记忆有误，从这篇来看，好像放了4万了。怎么还没达标呢？当年记得好像就
是放四万就可以的了。
http://www.ocregister.com/news/beard-409462-inmates-prisons.htm
Published: Jan. 27, 2013 Updated: 9:58 p.m.
Brown puts former prisons critic atop oversight agency
By DON THOMPSON / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown says it's time for the federal courts to end
their oversight of medical care and other operations within the California
prison system, and he's named a somewhat surprising ally to help him make
the case.
Jeffrey Beard, who testified four years ago that California's prisons were
dangerously overcrowded, began work last week as secretary of the state
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.ADVERTISEMENT
Beard now says conditions have improved so much that California should no
longer be required to reduce the inmate population to the level he once
supported as an expert witness testifying before a panel of federal judges.
"To the extent that they found what I said credible before, if I say
something today, hopefully they'll find that credible, as well," Beard told
The Associated Press in a sit-down interview Friday.
Brown filed court papers this month asking the judges to lift their
population cap, effectively leaving the state's 33 adult prisons with about
10,000 more inmates than the level ordered by the court based on testimony
by Beard and other corrections experts. The cap set in 2009 was supported by
the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011, but Brown said he is prepared to appeal
again to the nation's high court.
"I think they're going to be impressed that the very critic, namely the
plaintiffs' expert witness, is now running the system," the Democratic
governor said while announcing the court challenge.
Beard's support is significant because he said changes since his testimony
mean California can meet constitutional standards despite having more
inmates than allowed by the court order. The prisons now hold a total of 43,
000 fewer inmates than they did in 2006.
"That's a historic change. There's nobody else in the country that's done
that," said Beard, who retired after leading the Pennsylvania prison system
for nearly a decade.
California's prison system had been the nation's largest but now trails
Texas in the number of inmates, even though Texas has about 12 million fewer
residents.
The reduction was accomplished mainly through Brown's so-called realignment
plan, which took effect in October 2011 and sentences lower-level offenders
to county jail instead of state prison.
Under court order, the state also has spent billions of dollars to build
more and better health care facilities and improve the treatment of mentally
and physically ill inmates, in part by hiring more doctors, nurses and
other medical personnel.
"You add all of that up and you have a system that is much more nimble, much
more responsive and much more able to deal with the mental health and the
medical issues than it ever could have back before," said Beard, who will
make $225,000 a year in his new role.
Attorneys who have sued the state over poor care and overcrowding praised
Beard's appointment but said it will not influence the courts.
"The tremendous challenges that face the state remain," said Michael Bien,
the lead attorney in the court battle over mental health care. "While I
support the appointment of Jeff Beard, I don't think in-and-of itself it
amounts to a hill of beans."
Some of Beard's current views conflict with his previous testimony to the
federal judges, said Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office.
Beard, who at the time was secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections, testified in 2008 that he considered 3,300 inmates to be the
upper limit for a manageable prison. California prisons still house an
average of 3,600 inmates, although Beard said he didn't realize then that
California subdivides its prisons into smaller and more manageable units.
Four years ago, he cited California prisons' high suicide rate as one
indication of a dangerously crowded system.
Now Beard argues that a federal court also should end its oversight of
mental health care, even though a court-appointed special master reported
last week that inmates are dying by suicide at the rate of one every 11 days
, substantially exceeding the national average for state prisons.
Prison officials have taken steps to prevent suicides and get swifter
treatment for seriously mentally ill inmates. Many of the remaining problems
, Beard argued, are in meeting bureaucratic standards.
Beard was a member of an expert panel that in 2007 advised California prison
officials on ways to improve prison and parole programs. He said he had no
interest in becoming secretary then because the system was so crowded it
could not adopt many of the experts' recommendations.
"I saw this big system that back in the 1970s used to be at the pinnacle of
corrections. ... And then you saw what happened to the system based on the
severe overcrowding," he said. "Things suffered."
The prison crowding resulted, in part, from numerous tough-on-crime
sentencing laws, many of them approved by voters, that were implemented
without any way to pay for the space needed to house the additional convicts.
The federal court order applies to the state's 33 adult prisons, which now
hold about 119,000 inmates, down from 153,000 four years ago. The level set
by the judges would cap the population at about 110,000 inmates.
Thousands more are in firefighting camps and private prisons, including
nearly 9,000 in private prisons in other states. Brown plans to bring those
out-of-state inmates back to California prisons starting in July.
Beard recalled testifying about the state's "lack of political will" to
reform, until the courts forced improvements. That means the department now
can revive rehabilitation programs that largely died because of crowding and
budget cuts, he said.
He also hopes to deal with the department's frequent practice of locking
inmates in their cells for weeks at a time after fights between inmates.
"Now there's a way to make a difference," he said.
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【在 n******d 的大作中提到】
: 这么恐怖
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