Governing Through Crime recently noted that photographs more than legalese may have swayed the opinion of Justice Breyer during December’s SCOTUS discussion of Schwarzenegger vs. Plata.
VIEW ALL PHOTOGRAPHS SUBMITTED HERE.
Breyer saw the photos in an amicus brief submitted by a coalition of religious group (PDF) in support of the plaintiff:
“It’s a big record. What I did was I – it refers to on-line evidence – I went and looked at the pictures, and the pictures are pretty horrendous to me. And I would say Page 10 of the religious group’s brief (PDF), for example, shows you one of them. And what [the religious groups] are saying is obvious. Just look at it. In conditions such as these, you cannot have mental health facilities that will stop people from killing themselves, and you cannot have medical facilities that will stop staph and tubercular infection.”
Schwarzenegger v. Plata is a federal class-action suit challenging health care conditions in the California prisons. In 2009, a California-based three-judge federal court found that massive overcrowding in the state’s prisons contributed to untreated mental illness, suicides and other preventable deaths of inmates. The overcrowding, the judges ruled, violated the Eighth Amendment rights of prisoners to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
The three judge panel ordered the release of 35,000 – 45,000 prisoners to ease overcrowding and restore constitutional rights. Schwarzenegger and the CDCr authroities immediately appealed. SCOTUS are currently deciding if the three judge panel was within jurisdiction to order the mass release of prisoners; AND if overcrowding does directly cause poor medical and mental health-care.
Commentators have noted the apparent empathy of many Justices. It is common knowledge that California’s prison policy has been tumorous and it is no surprise it has come to the most drastic court ordered release of prisoners in US history to solve the problem. The Atlanta Post reports California Sheds Light On The Need for Criminal Justice Reform.
Prison Photography 
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January 8, 2011 at 10:25 am
Janice
They are deplorable conditions. However, what about the citizens who the 35,000+ prisoners will be thrust upon to break the laws again. What about safety of the citizens from these criminals? They gave up their right to a decent living when they broke the law. They would not be living like this if they lived according to the law of the land. There should be some other solutions other than release. Rent spaces in other jails in less crowded states. Other states could build the prisons and let states with overcrowding pay them to house the criminals. Criminals would work in prison to pay their board and keep (making licenses, farming within the prison properties for their own food supply, etc.). There’s a better answer than wholesale release of prisoners on law-abiding citizens.
January 9, 2011 at 11:43 pm
petebrook
Janice. You make the presumption people in prisons are unchangeable, unredeemable, and always likely to return to crime. That, I think is pessimistic. Many actions that put folk behind bars are the result of addiction. Drug use should not be treated as an a crime. Also, many of those to be released would be men and women in their old age, who are not likely to return to crime because they in some cases have severe health issues (partly due to poor healthcare while inside prison).
Also, many of these 35,000+ are people who would’ve been released a long time ago but due to new laws and determinate sentencing, they are simply spending more time in prison because of bad legislation. The original “crimes” are the same.
The three judge federal ruling clearly found that CA’s prison system was unconstitutional. Release is viable because the mass incarceration was over zealous in the first place. Let’s not go down the road of shipping and renting people to other states.
January 10, 2011 at 10:59 am
Janice
Pete – Whether from drugs or physical crime, they broke the law. As for shipping to other states, that is done all the time – recent example – Bernie Madoff in NC prison. One of the deterrents to crime is the fact the living arrangements are bad — a punishment. I do not believe that “people in prisons are unchangeable, unredeemable, and always likely to return to crime” as you suggest. I have seen those who have been rehabilitated and put back into society and become model working citizens. They definitely did not want to return to those conditions. I don’t know why you say the “mass incarceration was over zealous in the first place”. I have no opinion on that without researching it. Is that just your opinion?
January 10, 2011 at 11:20 am
petebrook
Janice. It is my own opinion, but it is backed up statistics that show prisons became a boom industry in the late seventies/early eighties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_timeline-clean.svg) The quadrupling of America’s prison population was driven by many factors but most of all misplaced vengeance. Social justice has not been served. The motive was to incapacitate and abandon rehabilitation (education grants were dismantled). The drive was a raft of tough on crime laws that had more to do with whipped up public fear and less to do with reasoned policy.
Yes, violent criminals should be kept away from the public, yes, people living within the laws should expect high levels of protection, but this does not come at the expense of individuals who are discarded, lost and brutalised in a system incapable of supporting itself.
When I think of prison populations, the first thing that springs to mind is not “the criminal”, but boredom, forced alliances, wasted potential; warehoused bodies.
I also don’t think that terrible conditions are the purpose of prison. The purpose of prison is to deny someone their liberty; not to submerge individuals into unpredictable psychological gauntlet.
Back to the original issue, the release of 35,000 prisoners is unprecedented, but from my position, the CDCR has carried forth the demands of punitive, expensive and damaging policy for over 30 years and this drastic response is only proportional to the drastic damage done unto the state because everyone (tax-payers, CCPOA guards union, politicians) have been incentivized to ignore the problem.
Thanks for engaging me Janice and holding my feet to the fire. Hope we can continue the discussion and find common understanding of which there is probably a lot on this issue.
February 11, 2011 at 6:50 am
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May 23, 2011 at 10:09 pm
jmalsb832
re: photos mattered at supreme court. http://bit.ly/k8STM8 Photos in the opinion!