Overcrowding is so severe that 16,000 inmates are assigned cots in hallways and gyms; last month, the state began asking for volunteers to be moved to prisons out of state.

The system’s medical program is in federal receivership and much of the rest of the system is under court monitoring. Cellblocks are teeming with violence. Seven of 10 inmates released from prison return, one of the highest rates in the country.

The state has the largest number of parole absconders, roughly 20 percent. ... The system houses 173,000 inmates — second-place Texas has 152,500 — and has an $8 billion budget.

Here's the genesis of the problem:

Its population explosion is in large part an outgrowth of a general increase in the state’s population, its unusual sentencing structure and parole system, a legislature historically enamored with increasing penalties, and ballot measures like the three-strikes initiative.

Further, most rehabilitation programs have been eliminated from the system in recent years, which some criminal justice experts believe has increased the rate of recidivism. ...

Under laws passed in the 1970s, ironclad sentences for crimes are set by the legislature, with little discretion left to judges. Looked at simply, people sentenced to prison for three years get out in three years, whether they have behaved, gone to school or stared at the wall.

Once out, prisoners are assigned to parole and can be sent back to prison for automatic sentences for technical or criminal violations.

Here are the barriers to a more rational policy:

The corrections officers union, among the state’s most powerful, has been historically resistant to reducing the prison population. Conservative lawmakers and the governor have resisted any change that smacks of sentence reduction, and their liberal counterparts have been loath to be tarred as soft on crime.

Sentencing commissions are touted as a solution, but the federal experience suggests that they can be part of the problem. Still, giving commissions real tools to use as alternatives to incarceration -- increasing resources for community supervision and treatment programs -- could contribute to a more rational system.

Of course, the California District Attorneys Association thinks any solution must "increase sentences for some offenders." Don't they understand that ever-increasing sentences have caused the crisis that California now faces?