Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

In Oklahoma a few years before I went to prison an inmate, Bobby Battle, sued the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, alleging that the conditions in the system were so overburdened that they were unconstitutional.

http://tinyurl.com/ppgyovf

Judge Bohanan ruled in Battle's favor, rendering this opinion----

""Persons are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. It is incumbent on the incarcerating body to provide the individual with a healthy environment. Anything less would be to subject the individual to further punishment than was given by the sentencing trial court. With habilitation assured, then possibly or probably the inmate can decide to rehabilitate himself.

But if the basic habilitative needs of the individual are not met, then rehabilitation, reformation or redemption are not possible. Water, fire protection, air and food are necessities of life. Minimum space to call one's own is a primary psychological necessity. Without the basic minimums prisons are doomed to failure, with both society and the inmate incarcerated therein the losers.""

After this ruling, Oklahoma was ordered to reduce their prison population. They did this primarily by awarding more good time credits to non-violent offenders. They enacted the "CAP" law which gave 30 days extra good time per month to those who were imprisoned on a non-violent crime.

They finally got the population down, but it did take a while. When I went to prison, everything was still a mess as far as overcrowding was concerned.

Oklahoma undid everything in the late 1990's by enacting the 85% laws which required certain inmates---mostly those in prison for a violent crime---to serve at least 85% of their sentence before they could be eligible for any kind of release.

I was sentenced under the old law and I was able to discharge my entire 20 year sentence in eight years. Under the new law, I would have spent 17 years in prison. That is a big difference and is one reason the prisons are overcrowded.

Arkansas, like Oklahoma, has always had a massive overcrowding problem.
Hopefully, one of these lawsuits will be successful and something can be done to help the inmates.

Prisons, much like the sex offender registry, have become so politicized that reform is very slow. The same can be said of our entire criminal justice system.

I fear that we will always have a prison overcrowding problem as we have many more inmates entering prison for long prison terms and very few being released. At some point, the prisons become so overcrowded that they are no longer functional.

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