Local county jails are unprepared to handle influx of mentally ill inmates Andrew Holland was a mentally ill inmate in San Luis Obispo County jail. Apparently, in order to prevent him from hurting himself, guards strapped him to a chair, naked, for 46 hours. Less than 40 minutes after he was removed from the chair, he died . That was in January. There’s been a surge in the number of mentally ill inmates and California’s jails are struggling to accommodate them.

Is California’s Infrastructure Safe? Two years ago, Southern California Gas asked state officials to approve a rate hike . The gas company said it needed to increase rates to conduct safety inspections of existing natural gas wells. Wells in four storage fields were deteriorating -- including its Aliso Canyon facility near Porter Ranch. Of course, we all know what happened there. A massive gas leak led to the evacuation of thousands of residents before it was finally capped last month. The wells weren’t fixed. The gas company is still waiting on that rate increase request. So who’s to blame -- the gas company or the regulators? And which regulators? There is a maze of agencies that oversees our infrastructure, which is deteriorating. Can the public trust that state agencies are doing what they need to to protect Californians?

Prison Realignment and the Early Release of Jail Inmates Three years ago, the US Supreme court ruled that overcrowding in California’s prisons violated prisoners constitutional rights. The Brown Administration then instituted “realignment,” which means sending convicts for lesser crimes to county jails instead of state prisons. But there is no system of oversight—or even data collection—to determine the impact. So the LA Times conducted its own investigation .

California Prisons, Hunger Strikes and Overcrowding A federal court has forced California to reduce its prison population by diverting more low-level offenders to county jails. But the state still has 9,600 too many prisoners, and they need to be moved out of crowded prisons by the end of the year. That may force the state to release as many as 1,000 prisoners before they have completed their sentences. At the same time, there are still hundreds of prisoners on hunger strike in protest against the Department of Corrections' use of solitary confinement. Paige St John has been following both of these stories for the Los Angeles Times .