Panel Will Address Prison Overcrowding

The overcrowding of California’s state prisons led Governor Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency late last year. Yesterday, two federal judges ruled simultaneously that he and the legislature are not doing enough to correct the conditions that violate the Constitution. More than 170,000 inmates are crammed into a space built for 135,000. If the courts decide to cap the prison population, 35,000 prisoners could be released early.