Overcrowded and Going Broke: A Look Inside California’s Massive Prison System
by Democracy Now!
California has the most prisoners in the nation with some 160,000 people behind bars. California jails hold more than double the designed capacity and are so overcrowded that a federal court last month ordered the state to reduce the prison population by more than 40,000 in the next two years.

 

Racked and stacked in California

 

The ruling comes as California is in the midst of a severe budget crisis. We speak with University of California, Berkeley professor Jonathan Simon, author of Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear.  

 

 

 

[In Canada, Stephen Harper has repeatedly voiced support of the infamous American legislation known as 'Three Strikes.' More than any other single factor, Three Strikes is responsible for the incarceration ofuntold hundreds of thousands of Americans on petty charges that would inspire Dickens, Hugo, and Twain. - ed.]