The Weekly Standard signs on to the prison reform movement with a look at the problems with California's powder keg jails, which are so over crowded the state has resorted to exporting prisoners to privately operated out-of-state prisons.

Tough-on-crime sentencing enhancements, less discretion for trial judges, and the switch from indeterminate to fixed sentencing have resulted in a 600 percent increase in California's prison population between 1980 and 2006. Designed to hold 81,000 inmates, California's 33 prisons now house close to 174,000 men. Crowding is so intense that 16,000 convicts sleep in hallways, classrooms, and other areas not intended for habitation. Projections indicate that 23,000 additional inmates will be added within five years, which could prompt a corresponding jump in a suicide rate that already is twice the national average for prisoners.

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Twenty California counties have court-ordered population caps on their jails. An additional 12 counties have imposed population caps on themselves to avoid costly litigation. These population caps mean that someone must be released when a new inmate is admitted to a full jail. As a consequence, 233,388 individuals avoided incarceration in 2005, or were released early from county jail sentences, because of a lack of space.

And one note-worthy positive development:

For Harris Wood, life in prison changed dramatically two years ago when he arrived at the Lancaster State Prison and discovered the Honor Program. Organized by inmates and open to prisoners without discipline problems, the program allows prisoners who promise not to fight or use drugs and agree to disavow racism to live together away from the gangs.

The program has produced an 85 percent decline in violence and 88 percent reduction in weapons-related incidents, according to state senator Gloria Romero, who chairs the California Assembly's Senate Public Safety Committee. There have been cost savings of $200,000 from the reduction of staff time needed to document violent incidents.

More in this Times dispatch from last year.