BROWN ASKS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO STOP PRISON POPULATION REDUCTION

Governor Jerry Brown is asking the federal court to drop its requirement that California reduce its prison population. He also says it's time for the feds to back off from its oversight of mental healthcare in California’s prison system. Tuesday brown expressed that progress has been made and there is no need for federal supervision. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled California must reduce prison inmate crowding as part of a prison realignment plan. Brown's office said the inmate population in the state's prisons has been reduced by 43-thousand since 2006, to just less than 150 percent of capacity. The state is required to reduce crowding to 137.5 percent of capacity. In what Brown calls an intrusive effort by federal judges, he says it’s costing the cash-strapped state money that it cannot afford to spend.

"We have some people who say there are not enough dangerous felons on the street,” Brown said Tuesday, “We have another group who says wait a minute stop we have too many. I think we hit the right balance. I will continue pushing that objective because we have to bring down our prison spending. Our correctional costs as we invest more money in schools and education as voted in proposition 30."

Brown plans to make the case against federal control over California prisons to the 9th circuit. He says now the task needs to be focusing on drug treatment and rehabilitation for inmates.