Packing them in

摘要

Earlier this summer Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, said that the state's penal system was "falling apart in front of our very eyes". Indeed so. Some 172,000 inmates are crowded into institutions-from the state's 33 prisons to its 12 "community correctional facilities"-that are meant to house fewer than 90,000. Drug abuse is rampant; so too are diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C. Race-based gangs pose the constant threat of violence, riot and even murder. And with more than 16,000 prisoners sleeping in prison gymnasiums and classrooms, rehabilitation programmes are virtually non-existent which helps to explain why two-thirds of California's convicts, the highest rate in the country, are back in prison within three years of being released.