A miserable life in a California prison

I know prison life is generally pretty brutal, but I was still more or less a little shocked when I saw this picture in The Economist of a crowded California prison.  I'd have to assume everyone in this picture is in for a relatively minor crime such as drug possession or petty theft, and if so I'm not sure the crime is worth the punishment here.  I just can't imagine having so little privacy and can't even begin to imagine how badly that room must smell.  I guess I'm not alone here, as a California court just required some drastic changes within the next two years. Lazy man's summary: California is currently at 175% prison capacity, and a court decision recently made will require them to get down to 137.5% within the next two years (either releasing 46k people, shipping them out of state, putting them in county prisons, or building more state prisons).  Not an easy task for a debt burdened state.  So what caused this problem in the first place?  "The draconian sentencing laws that now unnecessarily keep huge numbers of entirely non-violent inmates behind bars: for smoking dope or writing bad checks , say, or for missing parole appointments."  Read the full article here