I am a California resident and taxpayer. I don't see this as a tax problem and can't understand how filing as such would change this. I grew up in New York state, where the prison system got a major overhaul after the Attica riots of 1971 and has stayed very clean since. My mother worked in the NYS prisons for 17 years and I never heard anything like this. The big problem is treating the gang members as a group. New York treats prisoners as individuals and does not negotiate with groups. If a prison system of California's size has a problem with gangs, it's not keeping individual members separated sufficiently. Then you don't lock one guy in the hole for years -- you leave him with dudes that don't think he's a leader in a different part of a giant state.