Amador County - Local officials are questioning a federal ruling in support of the release of tens of thousands of prisoners from California’s prison system. A panel of federal judges issued the temporary order to allow the release of 57,000 inmates, citing conditions so poor that inmates regularly die from a lack of proper care and inadequate medical facilities. Governor Schwarzenegger said the conditions constitute cruel and unusual punishment. “Evidence offered at trial was overwhelmingly to the effect that overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons,” wrote the judges. The Judges want the state to trim its prison population in half over the next three years. Prison overcrowding has become a serious issue in state prisons such as Mule Creek near Ione, where inmates have been sleeping in 3-tier bunk beds in the prison gymnasium. The facility was originally built for 1700 inmates, but currently is holding over 4000. California’s prison population is now about 158,000, well above the 84,000 for which they were designed. Tuolumne County Sheriff Jim Mele, who presides over the region near the Sierra Conservation Center, wonders who will take over the monitoring of parolees and what will happen in the state’s inmate firefighting program. He said the measure will endanger public safety. Proponents of the decision say that the estimated $35,000 it costs to house an inmate for one year is money being thrown away, and there has been no reduction in the crime rate. "We're confident that not only can it be reduced safely, but if the governor spends the billion dollars he would save from reducing the prison population into crime prevention programs, it would actually make the community safer than it is now," said Don Spencer, Prison Law Office director. Another concern is prison staff reductions. Ione has developed a codependency with Mule Creek State Prison and the Preston Youth Facility that has turned Ione into a “company town”, said Supervisor Richard Forster. In reference to the proposed closure of Preston Youth Facility by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Forster said Preston and Mule Creek have become local institutions. “Preston is high on the list of potential closures, and if it were to close it would have a devastating impact on Ione and Amador County,” said Forster. There is no word yet as to when the order would be implemented. Story by Alex Lane (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).