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Though healthcare within the state's 34 prisons continues to improve, problems persist in contract prisons where the state pays to house its overflow inmate population. "Little progress has been made in resolving, much less improving," the care provided to 4,200 inmates in seven contracted lockups, medical receiver Clark Kelso said in a report filed Monday with the three federal judges who oversee the state's prison system. Four of the seven prisons in Kern and San Bernardino counties are owned by the GEO Group; three are owned by small communities. (St. John, 6/1)

Contract prisons in California provide such poor health care that a federal official on Monday questioned Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to bring additional inmates back from private prisons in other states. While care in the 34 state-operated prisons has generally been improving, there has been little progress for the more than 4,000 patients housed at seven publicly and privately operated prisons, J. Clark Kelso, the federal receiver who controls the state's prison health care system, said in a report. (Thompson, 6/1)