Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

28 

BROWN v. PLATA 

Opinion of the Court 

to require that crowding be the only cause, it would have 
said so, assuming in its judgment that definition would be
consistent with constitutional limitations. 

As  this  case  illustrates,  constitutional  violations  in 
conditions of  confinement  are  rarely  susceptible  of  simple
or straightforward solutions.  In addition to overcrowding
the  failure  of  California’s  prisons  to  provide  adequate
medical and mental health care may be ascribed to chronic 
and worsening budget shortfalls, a lack of political will in 
favor of reform, inadequate facilities, and systemic admin-
istrative  failures.  The  Plata  District  Judge,  in  his  order
appointing  the  Receiver,  compared  the  problem  to  “ ‘a
spider web, in which the tension of the various strands is 
determined by the relationship among all the parts of the
web, so that if one pulls on a single strand, the tension of
the  entire  web  is  redistributed  in  a  new  and  complex
pattern.’ ”    App.  966–967  (quoting  Fletcher,  The  Discre-
tionary  Constitution:  Institutional  Remedies  and  Judicial 
Legitimacy, 91 Yale L. J. 635, 645 (1982)); see also Hutto, 
437 U. S., at 688 (noting “the interdependence of the con-
ditions  producing  the  violation,”  including  overcrowd-
ing).  Only a multifaceted approach aimed at many causes, 
including overcrowding, will yield a solution.

The  PLRA  should  not  be  interpreted  to  place  undue 
restrictions  on  the  authority  of  federal  courts  to  fashion
practical  remedies  when  confronted  with  complex  and 
intractable constitutional violations.  Congress limited the
availability  of  limits  on  prison  populations,  but  it  did  not 
forbid  these  measures  altogether.    See  18  U. S. C.  §3626. 
The House Report accompanying the PLRA explained: 

“While  prison  caps  must  be  the  remedy  of  last  re-
sort,  a  court  still  retains  the  power  to  order  this
remedy despite its intrusive nature and harmful con-
sequences  to  the  public  if,  but  only  if,  it  is  truly 
necessary to prevent an actual violation of a prisoner’s