Special Assignment: Inside CA Prisons

02/23/2007 (KFSN) -- This tiny cell was designed for one. But two men must call this cramped space home. Bad as it seems, they are among the lucky ones at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, where thousands of inmates must live in their bunks...stacked three high in gyms and common areas in the prison.

Prisoners say it's unsanitary and hard to live with so many people in this cramped environment and they also claim that in some cases they're 'treated like animals' here at Pleasant Valley State Prison.

One Pleasant Valley inmate strangled his cell mate, just so he could get a private cell; trading a 22 year sentence for 76 years. He's now at another prison, presumably in a private cell.

California's 33 prisons were designed to hold100,000 inmates. There are now 173,000 behind bars.

Because of the dangers of overcrowding, a federal judge is threatening to cap the prison population at 172,000 and raising the possibility some inmates could have to be released early.

It is not a popular idea with politicians in Sacramento. Assembly Republican Leader, Mike Villines, says, "The idea that people in prison need to be let out early is a mistake. You earn your way to prison."

Villines supports Governor Schwarzenegger's call for spending nearly $11B on new prisons. He says, "We have to build prison space, there's no getting around that."

But State Senator Gloria Romero is pushing for wide ranging reformation of the system. So that means, rehabilitation, sentencing reform, parole reform, we can't just build our way out of this. More prisons is not the answer. "

But like building more space, reform takes time. Governor Schwarzenegger wanted to ship 5,000 to private prisons in other states, but a legal challenge by the state's Prison Guards Union appears to have stopped the move.

The union believes the state should be more selective about who it puts in prison, at a cost of 45,000 a year per inmate.

But the state has created few options other than prison, and tougher sentencing laws are keeping inmates behind bars longer than ever.

"It's one thing to go out there and shoot a gun and take a persons life, and it's another to have a dime bag of crank and get pulled over and get 25 to life, you understand what I'm saying?" says one inmate.

While the state scrambles to deal with the looming crisis, a private prison remains unfinished in the Central Valley City of Mendota. Facing political opposition from the powerful prison guards union, the company backed out.

Once again, CCPOA's Lance Corcoran claims it s about more than just jobs. He says, "When you take someone's liberty from them, your patch should represent the people of the state that have enacted those laws, not Acme corrections."

Unable to ship inmates to private prisons, the state has few options. If inmates are not released, then county jails will be forced to hold inmates heading for prison even longer. And with Fresno county facing its own jail overcrowding, it could be forced to release its inmates early.

The state is fighting the federal ruling on shipping inmates out of state. About 500 have gone voluntarily, but the state needs to move 5,000.

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