The American prison system in general -- and the prisons in California in particular -- are a conspicuous blight on the nation. (In fact, I may never forgive James Webb for actually trying to take on the thankless job of making prison reform a national issue, and then bailing on the Senate after one term.) It is in the prisons that every single problem with our criminal justice system -- from the idiotic "war' on drugs to the fanciful notion that privatizing public services makes the delivery of those systems both cheaper and more efficient to the larger problems of race and class -- all come together in thousands of powder kegs in thousands of different places. And, thanks to some yeoman work by The Sacramento Bee, never let it be said that old times there are e're forgotten, either.

Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future. Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison's infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. "I was like, 'Oh my God, that's not right,' " said Nguyen, 28. "Do they think they're animals, and they don't want them to breed anymore?" One former Valley State inmate who gave birth to a son in October 2006 said the institution's OB-GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, repeatedly pressured her to agree to a tubal ligation. "As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it," said Christina Cordero, 34, who spent two years in prison for auto theft. "He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn't do it."

Before we get all chuffed up about these renegade doctors and this renegade prison system, let's not forget that the ghost of Carrie Buck has wandered through modern criminal justice for a while now. And let's not pretend that there's nothing wrong with a state prison system that's under receivership because its entire health-care system violated the Sixth Amendment. Not that gthe receivership worked very well, either.

The receiver has overseen medical care in all 33 of the state's prisons since 2006, when U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson ruled that the system's health care violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The receiver's office was aware that sterilizations were happening, records show. In September 2008, the prisoner rights group Justice Now received a written response to questions about the treatment of pregnant inmates from Tim Rougeux, then the receiver's chief operating officer. The letter acknowledged that the two prisons offered sterilization surgery to women. But nothing changed until 2010, after the Oakland-based organization filed a public records request and complained to the office of state Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge. Liu was the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System. Prompted by a phone call from Liu's staff, Barnett said the receiver's top medical officer asked her to research the matter. After analyzing medical and cost records, Barnett met in 2010 with officials at both women's prisons and contract health professionals affiliated with nearby hospitals. The 16-year-old restriction on tubal ligations seemed to be news to them, Barnett recalled. And, she said, none of the doctors thought they needed permission to perform the surgery on inmates.

I, of course, fully expect the pro-life crowd to be all over this, and for people to be gluing their heads to the doors of the California State House by this time tomorrow.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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