The US Supreme Court ruled on Monday that California must drastically reduce its prison population to relieve severe overcrowding that has exposed inmates to increased violence, disease and death.<br /><br />California is home to the largest prison systems in the US - the country with the world's largest incarceration rates. <br /><br />The high court's decision calls on the state to cut the population to no more than 110,000 inmates, meaning California will have to shed some 33,000<br />inmates over the next two years. State officials can accomplish<br />that by transferring inmates to local jails or releasing them.<br /><br />"Our goal is to not release inmates at all,'' said Matthew Cate, the<br />state corrections secretary. Shorter term inmates will leave prison before<br />the Supreme Court's deadline expires, and newly sentenced lower-level<br />offenders would go to local jails under the plan.<br /><br />The 5-4 ruling revealed a sharp divide on the court between US Justices<br />Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia.<br /><br />Kennedy wrote for the majority and described dismal conditions where<br />prisoners are denied minimal care and suicidal inmates are held in `"telephone-booth sized cages without toilets".<br /><br />"A prison that deprives prisoners of basic sustenance, including adequate<br />medical care, is incompatible with the concept of human dignity and has no<br />place in civilized society,'' Kennedy wrote.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett reports.
