Prison Overcrowding Essay

930 Words4 Pages

Prison overcrowding is the escalating number of inmates incarcerated beyond the prison’s capacity. Some reasons causing the increase of prisoners are tough on crime laws and drug offenses. In this report we’ll go over the history of California’s inmate increase. The steps taken to help reduce the high numbers of incarcerated prisoners within the years. Although, it’s an open discussion within society, race has a huge impact on incarcerated prisoners, especially in drug offenses. The treatment within the facility and the programs available for their prisoners. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been releasing annual reports since 2009 that reach way back to 1989. Each report gives a full overview of the yearly successes and changes committed within the years recorded. It covers from the CDCR budget, the new felon admissions, the adult programs, to the Recidivism rates. In this case, the main point is the total population that falls shortly under Adult offenders. In the 2009 annual report, it begins with the year 1989, that comes out with a total of 84,338 inmates, 5,427 being female prisoners, while …show more content…

At the peak of 2006, California’s prison population reached a number of 160,000 inmates because of that California 's prisons were seen as cruel and unusual punishment under the United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown v. Plata. Some prisoners were able to serve their sentences with enough food and water, others didn’t have the privilege. Beside the lack of necessities from the prison, they also weren’t healthy places. California’s prisons lacked the ability to provide for every inmate, they also lacked enough medical resources to deny prisoners medical treatment. Prison inmates suffered rof mental illness, violence, HIV, and other infectious diseases. Some left untreated Prisons often house inmates from communities disproportionately affected by health inequities and, in turn, return sick people to those same