The state stuffs its 33 adult prisons with nearly twice as many inmates as they were designed to house. Attorneys representing the inmates asked the judges on Thursday to order the state to trim about 52,000 inmates from the current population of 156,300 over the next two years.

The judges hearing the case brought on behalf of sick and mentally ill inmates may not make a decision until next year. The special three-judge panel is acting for the first time under a 1995 federal law designed to limit the judiciary's power in inmate rights cases, and any release order likely faces an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several more weeks of testimony are scheduled this month on whether releasing inmates early will increase crime. The judges have already heard seven days of testimony on overcrowding.

"In the long run, does it make any difference to public safety if we release them 60 days earlier?" than their original sentence, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton of Sacramento wondered as the judges debated one hypothetical release order this week.

Attorneys for the inmates argued that releasing prisoners would reduce violence in prison and the spread of contagious disease, end the need for housing inmates in gymnasiums and other makeshift areas, and improve treatment for mentally and physically ill inmates who now suffer and sometimes die of neglect.

They produced criminologists who said the state could cut its population safely through steps such as reducing the number of parolees sent back to prison for "technical" violations like testing positive for drugs or failing to meet with a parole agent, and giving alternative sentences to criminals who currently serve short prison terms.

Inmates who participate in education and other rehabilitation programs _ even some serious, violent offenders _ could be released from prison earlier.

Better still, the state should be required to spend more money to keep people from going to prison in the first place, Jerry Powers, Stanislaus County's chief probation officer, told the judges.

Freeing criminals earlier gives them more time to commit new crimes, said Powers, who leads the statewide chief probation officers' association. He was not comforted by new scientifically developed questionnaires designed to predict which ex-convicts are most likely to commit new crimes.

Nonviolent inmates may be considered a lower risk to society, but they are statistically more likely to commit repeat property crimes. Murderers are more dangerous but are statistically unlikely to kill again, Powers said.

Attorneys for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state legislators and county law enforcement officials are presenting witnesses, including Powers, who say reducing the prison population would increase crime.

They say the state already is making progress in improving inmate care. More and better-trained medical and mental health workers have been hired under the guidance of a court-appointed receiver. The state is spending $2.25 billion this year to treat, house and guard physically and mentally ill inmates, or nearly $14,000 annually per inmate, according to the state Department of Finance.

That is an 81 percent increase over the last three years, yet Karlton called it "absolutely inadequate" to solve the state's problems.

Karlton and a second judge on the panel, Appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, said they have little choice but to order a population cut because the state has not acted on its own.

Reinhardt noted that legislators this year stalled $8 billion in bonds to build medical centers for 10,000 mentally and physically ill inmates, and $7.4 billion for 38,000 additional prison and jail cells. With the state facing an $11.2 billion budget deficit for the current fiscal year, legislators are unlikely to approve more prison spending, he said.

"If the state were to wake up and start behaving in a rational way, we all wouldn't be here," Karlton said. "The question is, what can the federal courts do?"