SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- While prison guards allegedly watched the Super Bowl and ignored his screams for hours, an inmate on dialysis died as most of his blood drained from his body.
The death last month was just the latest horror story to come out of the California prison system and confront Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with one of the biggest crises of his new administration.
Among other things, two teenagers hanged themselves last month at a juvenile prison. And in a recent series of scathing reports and hearings, legislators, outside experts and whistleblowers have charged that the nation's biggest prison system is plagued by out-of-control spending, inhumane discliplinary practices, and outright brutality on the part of guards.
"Most people in California aren't sent to prisons on death sentences," said state Sen. Gloria Romero, a Democrat from Los Angeles who is co-chairing legislative hearings now under way on the 160,000-inmate prison system. "Yes, we want to be tough on crime. We don't want to be torture chambers."
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