From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, American-run prisons — especially those outside the United States — have received considerable well-earned negative attention over the last decade, proving that a picture really is worth a thousand words, Americans’ actions in the infamous Abu Ghraib photos sent a visual message to the world that we don’t practice what we preach. Now, the incarceration of alleged terrorists within the walls of Guantanamo, or the dilemma that their disputed futures present, has demonstrated just how impractical and potentially dangerous it can be to uphold the writ of habeas corpus for all.

Yet while offering nothing even close to as embarrassing as Abu Ghraib’s picture-proven torture or President Obama’s seemingly unattainable promise of a Guantanamo shut-down by January — sorry Barack, but the American people aren’t supporting the release of could-be terrorists or their entry into prisons on U.S. soil — this country’s own prison system is in need of some much-warranted attention.

In California, a state where the prison system is designed to hold a mere 85,000 inmates, the current population of incarcerated law-breakers stands at a whopping 150,000. The sum is so great, in fact, that the state’s prison health-care system received the attention of a panel of federal judges in early August thanks to reports of prisoners being housed in triple bunk beds in gyms and hallways, guards being forced to monitor dozens of inmates at a time, and many ill inmates dying from lack of treatment.

Offering an opinion on not only the state’s prison health-care system but on overcrowding in general, the panel stated “In short, California’s overcrowded, dangerous, unhealthy prisons are bursting at the seams and are impossible to manage.” To address the problems posed by the numbers, the three judges ordered the state to reduce its prison population by 40,000 — or 27 percent — within the next two years.

Governor Schwarzenegger can’t be too disappointed with the order, as he had already hoped that reducing the state’s prison population by 27,000 inmates could help address his state’s $24 billion budget gap.

Regardless, the question is just how these numbers will be cut back. Should all “nonviolent” offenders, such as small-time pot dealers and shoplifters, be released early? Should parole policies be relaxed for those who have demonstrated a few months’ worth of good behavior?

Neither answer will suffice; having not yet demonstrated regret or reform to a great enough extent to be released under current California law, it is inevitable that a significant portion of these 40,000 soon-to-be-free criminals will commit crimes again.

Nationwide, recidivism rates are abysmal. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that out of 272,111 prisoners released in 15 states during 1994, 67.5 percent were re-arrested within three years, representing a 5 percent jump from the number of ex-cons who were found to be re-arrested by a similar study in 1983. The lack of more current data from the Bureau — which no doubt abandoned the every-decade study due to its unhappy findings — suggests that today’s recidivism rates are likely even worse. Throw in the fact that California is facing one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and it seems even likelier that jobless criminals such as drug dealers and robbers will revert to their old trades.

So what should poor old California do?

It should defy the order of the three-judge panel. Rather than give in, the state should call attention to the unfortunate fact that for many in America, crime does pay, and take this opportunity to correct that fact. It should begin by taking away the benefit that got it into this mess in the first place: health care.

Sure it might sound cruel, but it’s completely rational. As the health care debate has made clear, there are millions living in the United States — some 46 million under 65, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. Census Bureau — who don’t have even the lowest level of health-care coverage. Prisoners, on the other hand, do, and as Chris Rock once said, “That ain’t right.”

Low-quality care or not, those who have broken society’s rules do not deserve to be rewarded with a tax-funded benefit that so many law-abiding taxpayers do not receive themselves.

Republicans, Democrats and cable news commentators can debate to what extent the government should be involved in health care all they want. Americans who are supported by Medicare can even go to town hall debates and demonstrate both their free speech and their ignorance by vehemently stating any government involvement in health care [side note: that includes Medicare] is socialism.

But absurd is the only applicable word when Americans pay to provide others with what they themselves lack.

There’s no better time for somebody to admit this, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Governator is courageous enough to do it.

– Steve Adams is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Annapolis, Maryland.