Amnesty condemns ‘cruel conditions’ in California’s prisons

Amnesty International has called on authorities in the US state of California to make radical reforms to the state’s prison system, condemning “the cruel conditions” of solitary confinement units there.

“The authorities in California have a historic opportunity to end the inhumane conditions of detention of the hundreds of prisoners held in isolation across the state,” said Tessa Murphy, USA campaigner at Amnesty International.

According to the human rights organization, prisoners held in solitary confinement units in California’s Pelican Bay State Prison are confined to windowless cells for at least 22 hours a day and can exercise for only a 90-minute session per week.

“Holding prisoners in such restrictive conditions for prolonged periods of isolation is cruel and inhumane. Urgent reforms are needed to bring conditions in line with legal and human rights standards,” Murphy said.

In 2012, when an Amnesty International official visited California prisons, around 4,000 inmates were held in isolation units.

Last year, thousands of individuals in prisons across California went on a hunger strike, demanding an end to what they described as inhumane conditions including keeping them in solitary confinement for 10 to 40 years.

In August last year, almost seven weeks after California prisoners had started their hunger strike, the state’s prison officials even won a court order that allowed them to force-feed hunger-striking prisoners.

An NPR report last year estimated that 80,000 prisoners in the US spend 23 hours a day in closed isolation units for 10, 20, or even over 30 years.