By DON THOMPSON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 24, 2007; 11:21 AM

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's $7.8 billion prison reform plan will only make conditions worse behind bars, two federal judges said in ordering the creation of a judicial panel to recommend better ways to ease prison crowding.

The move, which could lead to the capping of the inmate population or the early release of some prisoners, drew criticism from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said he would appeal.

U.S. District Court Judges Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento and Thelton Henderson of San Francisco held a joint hearing on the matter in June and issued the simultaneous opinions Monday.

They said the state's prison system has grown so large that conditions make it impossible to provide acceptable medical and mental health care to inmates.

Last spring, lawmakers agreed to build 53,000 new prison and jail cells as part of an ambitious $7.8 billion program to address a crisis that has been building for decades, but the judges rejected the plan.

Karlton and Henderson said the state can't hire enough guards and medical professionals to provide proper care and oversight for the inmates it has now, let alone the thousands more who might be added through the building program.

"From all that presently appears, new beds will not alleviate this problem but will aggravate it," Karlton wrote.

Beyond an inmate cap or prisoner release, the state might be forced to reform its sentencing laws, parole guidelines and prisoner rehabilitation efforts so fewer parolees return to prison.

The judges became involved in California's prison system after years of lawsuits filed by inmate advocacy groups. Those lawsuits have left many operations of the nation's largest state prison system under the authority of state and federal courts, including inmate health care, mental health services, care of disabled inmates and employee discipline.

The decision to order the three-judge panel's creation goes to the chief judge of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who would make the appointments.

Schwarzenegger's appeal will go to the same court. While the appeal process is under way, his administration intends to press ahead with the building program and a plan to transfer 8,000 inmates to prisons in other states.

California's corrections system has just over 172,800 inmates behind bars, about 400 of them housed in facilities in Arizona and Tennessee.