Schwarzenegger nixes California mass prisoner release: report News
Schwarzenegger nixes California mass prisoner release: report

[JURIST] California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website] has abandoned a 2007 plan to release approximately 22,000 "lower risk" prisoners who have less than 20 months of their sentences remaining, according to a Tuesday report in the Sacramento Bee. The proposal was intended to cut a multi-billion dollar deficit and alleviate severe prison overcrowding [JURIST reports] in California's prison system [JURIST news archive], which has a population of over 170,000 despite being designed to hold only 100,000. The Bee cited administration officials as saying that the plan was dropped because more prisoners than expected are already leaving the system.

In May 2007, Schwarzenegger signed off on a $7.7 billion program to construct facilities [JURIST report] to provide 53,000 new prison and jail beds over the next five years. In July 2007, two federal district judges separately ordered the formation of a special three-judge panel [JURIST report] to supervise and reduce California's prison population after finding that overcrowding is preventing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation [official website] from adequately providing mental health care.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.