One real good way to reduce prison overcrowding would be to abide by court precedent. Oregon Advocacy Center v. Mink, 9th Circuit, 1993 (IIRC) ruled that when

One real good way to reduce prison overcrowding would be to abide by court precedent. Oregon Advocacy Center v. Mink, 9th Circuit, 1993 (IIRC) ruled that when a judge orders a defendant to a mental hospital, the state has seven days to get the defendant actually admitted to the hospital. The 9th Circuit governs the Western United States, including California, but even so despite that the ruling was made in 1993, it is quite uncommon for the state to obey the law by getting inmates into psych hospitals despite being specifically ordered to do so by a judge. I personally fault the defense attorneys for this. Every defense attorney should move for dismissal on day 8, but I myself am the only defendant that I am aware of that has had his case dismissed this way. My attorney was completely unaware of the 9th circuit's ruling until I brought it to his attention. I learned it from a jailhouse lawyer who found it in the jail's law library.