CA says it can't reduce inmate total

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/State-says-it-can-t-reduce-inmate-total-3798743.php

California officials, under U.S. Supreme Court orders to lower the population of its crowded prisons by 33,000 to bring a shoddy health care system up to constitutional standards, say they can't comply and shouldn't have to.

In a filing late Friday with a three-judge federal panel in San Francisco, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said it can provide adequate medical care at higher population levels - about 6,000 higher - than the Supreme Court required in its May 2011 ruling.

Department officials rejected the three-judge court's suggestion that the state could comply with the population standards by releasing some prisoners early without endangering the public. Those possibilities would include granting inmates greater sentence reductions for good behavior and expanding Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment program, which has moved low-level felons from prisons to county jails.