http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison21jul21,1,760251,print.story?coll=la-home-headlinesCriticizing the Schwarzenegger administration for a "business as usual" attitude toward reforming California's $6-billion prison system, a federal judge warned the state Tuesday he may appoint a receiver to take over the state Department of Corrections.
If U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson makes good on that threat, it would be a blow to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a beleaguered system reeling from a string of scandals.
Prison oversight by federal judges is not unheard of. But experts said placing day-to-day operation of an entire correctional system under an outsider may be unprecedented.
Henderson requested a meeting with the governor and expressed "disappointment and concern" over the administration's "noncompliance" with some of his earlier orders.
The San Francisco-based judge said he is particularly disturbed by a renegotiated labor pact between the state and the prison guards' union. That agreement, struck last month, deferred raises for corrections officers but granted the union new powers, protections and benefits worth millions.