The Crime of Punishment

“In 2005, when a federal court took a snapshot of California’s prisons, one inmate was dying each week because the state failed to provide adequate health care… Today, there are almost twice as many inmates in California’s 33 prisons as they were designed for. The court ordered the state to reduce that population by around 30 percent.” (NYT, Registration Required) The number of drug and non-violent offenders should be noted, as well as the number of people incarcerated for victimless "crimes."