California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger

Opinion

SCOTLAND, P. J.

— In October 2005, California’s prison system reached a milestone that its facilities were ill equipped to handle. Prison inmates numbered 166,148, a historic high greatly exceeding the capacity for which the prisons were designed. It is undisputed that severe overcrowding of state prisons posed a serious threat to the health and safety of inmates, correctional officers, and the general public because it (1) heightened the risk of inmate violence against other inmates and prison staff, (2) caused power failures that jeopardized prison security, (3) resulted in sewage…