Our criminal justice system is a disaster. The incarceration rate in the US quadrupled between 1980 and 2000. It now costs more than $70 billion a year to keep 7 million people behind bars, on parole, or on probation. In fact, we may be at a breaking point: Last year the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that due to severe overcrowding in California prisons, the state was violating inmates' Eighth Amendment rights- you know, the ones that mention "cruel and unusual punishment." The court gave the state two years to fix things. Constructing new prisons to house more than 30,000 people is impossible in that time, which means California must reduce its inmate population by other means.
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