On a typical Saturday night, 77 deputies are scheduled to watch the 4,000 prisoners at the North County facility in Castaic, sheriff's Sgt. Michael Waldman said this weekend. That ratio of about 50 inmates for every deputy is the highest in the country, [Sheriff] Baca said.

...Baca said that budget cuts forced him to stop hiring new deputies for about two years, creating a shortage of more than 1,000 deputies. Despite a recruitment effort and media campaign, the department has been unable to reduce that number, instead struggling to keep above near-record attrition. Nearly 500 deputies left the department in 2005, many of them unhappy with long assignments in the jails and the high cost of housing in Los Angeles County.

....In some instances, inmates outnumber deputies 100 to 1, the sheriff said.

Segregation in California's prisons has been a hot button topic for several years.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court said prison officials cannot segregate inmates by race except under extraordinary circumstances in which segregation is the only way to maintain inmate safety.

I wrote about the Supreme Court decision here, and California's race-based prisons here and here.

Gov. Arnold needs to find some money for the prison system. Why isn't he quoted in any of the articles today about the weekend riots? Does he think it's not his problem?