Prison Overcrowding: Sending Prisoners Out of State Ruled Illegal

CALIFORNIA - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested a strategy for dealing with overcrowding in California prison facilities - ship the convicts to another state. However, a California Superior Court judge last week determined that transferring inmates to another state is illegal.

Judge Gail D. Ohanesian agreed with Gov. Schwarzenegger that the California prisons are overcrowded, but stated that the governor had declared an emergency state in the prisons under the Emergency Services Act, and that Gov. Scwarzenegger's contracts with Tennessee and Arizona prisons to transfer inmates was illegal under this act. The Emergency Services Act was, the judge declared, intended for natural disasters or other situation that would overwhelm local jurisdictions and require state intervention.

According to the LA Times, Gov. Schwarzenegger has stated that the California prison system is currently operating at least at double capacity for which the facilities are intended to accommodate. The governor seems to be looking for an alternative to the prison overcrowding other than reducing sentences for convicted felons.

Originally, the governor's plan was to transfer inmates who volunteered for transfer, and so far, 360 inmates have been transferred to Arizona and Tennessee, but the goal was to transfer at least 5000 inmates under these contracts. When further inmates were not willing to volunteer for transfer, the governor's program was recently expanded to make some transfers mandatory.

That's when the Superior Court stepped in and blocked the transfers, saying they were illegal. The problem still exists that many California prisons have court ordered caps on the number of inmates, and according to corrections officials, there will be no room for more inmates by the end of the year if the current situation is not resolved.