Justice Kennedy: U.S. prison system is 'broken'

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is telling Congress that American prisons rely too much on holding inmates in isolation and that the corrections system is “broken” in many respects.

At a House committee hearing Monday to examine next year’s Supreme Court budget, Kennedy told lawmakers the country does not spend enough time thinking about making prisons more humane.

Kennedy says solitary confinement “literally drives men mad.”

He’s the author of the court’s opinion ordering California to cut its inmate population to deal with unconstitutional prison conditions caused by overcrowding.