Prison deadline extended

California has been granted six additional months to comply with the federal mandate requiring that the state reduce its prison population.

In early January, Gov. Jerry Brown requested a federal court drop its order to reduce prison populations and end federal oversight of care provided to inmates with mental illness. On Jan. 29, a panel of three federal judges extended the deadline to Dec. 31 for reducing the prison population to no more than 137.5 percent of design capacity, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement it was “pleased the court recognized that releasing thousands of inmates to reach the arbitrary population cap would have jeopardized public safety,” but urged the court to “go further and terminate the population cap entirely.”