12,000 inmates at prisons in California and around the country have been skipping meals to protest conditions in crowded detention centers and sending inmates to solitary confinement. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
It’s the second strike this year and it could be the largest protest in recent U.S. prison history.
This time, prison administrators are cracking down on the movement.
They are vowing to remove inmate leaders from the general population and have warned the rest they could be punished for joining a ‘mass disturbance.’
Prisoners are upset over the length of time some inmates are kept in solitary confinement.
They object to rules that allow prison officials to hold suspected gang members in solitary confinement indefinitely. They also want major changes to gang identification policies.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation say the measures are necessary to keep the prison population safe and under control.
The protest is a ‘rolling hunger strike,’ with inmates taking turns eating in order to sustain enough energy to continue, organizers said.
For that reason, California prison officials say the protests are much smaller than inmates are reporting. Only 1,200 inmates have missed nine or more consecutive meals.
A 20-day hunger strike in July involved about half as many inmates. Prison officials agreed to meet some of the inmates’ demands, but protesters say progress hasn’t come quickly enough, or at all.
Prison officials say they are treating this round of strikes more harshly because they believe they have already responded to the concerns of prisoners.
Hunger strikes have also cropped up in prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma. They have up to 4,000 participants.
