Appeal for hearing on California prisoners to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States August 24, 2013 by Peter A. Schey, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law sfbayview/2013/appeal-for-hearing-on-california-prisoners-to-the-inter-american-commission-on-human-rights-organization-of-american-states/ (Excerpt) "Overcrowding and racial disparities in California prisons" "With 4.5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 25 percent of the planet’s prisoners; California’s prison population consistently ranks among the largest in the country. In recent decades, numerous domestic lawsuits challenged California’s prison overcrowding. In 2011, the United States Supreme Court found that overcrowding – then at nearly twice the prisons’ design capacity – unconstitutionally harmed prisoners’ health and safety and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The state has yet to comply with that decision, which required a reduction of the population to 137 percent of capacity by the end of 2013. California’s prison population reflects broader U.S. trends of racially disparate incarceration practices. African Americans, while only 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, comprise nearly 50 percent of its 2.3 million prisoners. Latinos, only 12 percent of the population, constitute more than 25 percent of the prisoners."
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 05:41:17 +0000
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