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Solitary Confinement in California
These facilities, supermax prisons, were originally designed to contain and control the worst criminals and those who did not adhere to the rules of prisons, aka “the worst of the worst” .As of 2001, the count of inmates in administrative segregation in California was 5,982 representing an 80.2% change over time, but this number is not quite correct due to deficient files provided. Increasingly, the practice of using solitary confinement long term, instead of the intended three month period, in the supermax prisons as inmate management has become the norm. The selected inmates, who wear jumpsuits that differentiate them from the general population, will spend around 23 hours a day alone in a cell where they are offered very little and fully monitored as is procedure at Pelican Bay State Prison which is one the largest supermax prisons in the United States. In order to be sent to Pelican Bay, the inmate has either committed murder, assault, riots, threatening staff or fellow inmates, and even gang affiliation which must be validated by the prison staff.

There are 22 SHU units of Pelican Bay which include 132 eight-cell pods that are lit by heavy Plexiglass skylights enclosed by steel cell doors. The inmates are provided with a concrete slab as a bed, a toilet, small shelf, and a concrete stool with no windows in an 80 sq. foot space. California prisons allow for assault rifles in the control rooms which are situated in the middle of the semicircle of its pods. These control rooms add further isolation for the inmates because it eliminates the need for face-to-face interaction between staff and inmate, and their food plates are pushed through a small slot in the door. The only form of exercise allowed is once a day for an hour and a half where they’re taken to a 26 by 20 foot area surrounded by 20 foot high cement walls and subjected to strip searches before and after the allotted time. Only one prisoner from each pod can move at a time and must be handcuffed, which are also attached to a belly chain, plus cuffed at the ankles before they can leave. In the event that an inmate is released from the SHU to the B Unit, general Level-4 population, others will retaliate against them assuming they are a snitch which is why the B Yard is the most violent of the entire California prison system.

In San Quentin State Prison, the violence rates were still high in the 1980’s despite the similar lockdowns and procedures of Pelican Bay because these prisoners use the small windows out of lockdown to either harm themselves or others. They typically will try not to harm themselves while in the psychiatric hospital ward either, but they will plan out while in lockdown until they can see their plan through. However even as they near their release dates, they are moved to “prerelease programs” out of the SHU which are successful with some prisoners, but it causes most others to become even more uncontrollable and unpredictable due to their mental states that aren’t properly cared for or screened.

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