The government run prisons in CA are worse than the private prisons they closed. The prisons in CA are so bad, the federal government actually took over oversig

The government run prisons in CA are worse than the private prisons they closed. The prisons in CA are so bad, the federal government actually took over oversight of the medical care as they failed to provide a constitutional level of medical care to its prisoners: >... US District Court Judge Thelton Henderson said he was “driven in large measure by the stunning testimony that was uncontroverted that a prisoner in one of California's 32 prisons dies on average every 6 or 7 days as a result of malpractice, negligence, or some other deficiency in the State's medical care delivery system.” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605671978/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067... As fennecfoxen pointed out they also did things like forced sterilizations. The real problem is that we spend many billions on a prison industrial complex and there are many public sector unions, contractors, builders, etc who profit from it. The political contributions of the CA prison guard union are obviously not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions. As wikipedia says "...The CCPOA is widely considered one of the most powerful political forces in California politics. ... Lobbying efforts and campaign contributions by the CCPOA have helped secure passage of numerous legislative bills favorable to union members, including bills that increase prison terms, member pay, and enforce current drug laws." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_... This isn't to say that CA prisons are the worst in the country - likely other state's prisons are just as bad as CA. When you have the people regulating a system be the same people who are running the system, you really can't expect things to be that good.