The notorious supermax to our north landed at number six on Mother Jones’ list of the 10 worst prisons in the country. The magazine has done some of the best reporting on our country’s prison system over the last couple of years, including this disturbing investigative piece on Pelican Bay from former hostage Shane Bauer. After visiting the Secure Housing Units where prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for 22 1/2 hours per day, Bauer concluded that conditions there are worse than what he experienced as a hostage in Iran.
The Journal reported on the prison back in 2011, shortly after SHU inmates launched a hunger strike that soon spread across the state prison system. Pelican Bay prisoners are planning to resume their hunger strike in July.
This article appears in Summer of Fun 2013.
These men are in Pelican Bay for a reason. Just ask the victims families how they are doing in their own prison, which is a life sentence. Seems that the victim and their families are always forgotten about and its always about the poor murderer, rapist, child molester etc. its always about their rights! It is called making choices, and when you make the choice to destroy someones life, and or take a life, then you need to know that your choice can land you in a place like this. Lets show the crime scene and autopsy photos of the victims and tell the stories of what was done to them, and then maybe opinions of this SHU being so cruel and unusual punishment won’t have so many bleeding hearts!
still doesn’t give them the right to be treated unjustly
I have a close friend who works for Pelican Bay, and these prisoners get no more than is coming to them. They Do the Crime and they must Do the Time.
I am a firm believer in the Death Penalty, some of these men need to be put to immediate death, instead of us (and this includes the families of the Victims) having to feed, clothe, and give them a Free Ride on our Money. It is all of our Tax Dollars that take care of these Bums…..
Pelican Bay serves a purpose but it is wrong when that purpose is misaligned with true justice. Revenge is not part of justice neither is vengeance but it seems to creep in the mission when prisons are operated on a degraded value of human life and tacit approval that anything goes, it is out of control. Prisons designed to be safe and secure and in harmony with human decency and constitutional rule of law are sound. People like to put their own spin on how prisons should be run that is human nature but most believe that rule of law should not exist and anarchy runs the asylums. This is wrong and whether you agree or not.. rule of law must dominate the thinking and action track, not revenge.
Dear Angie and JDWafford,
Don’t you think there should be straight-up torture of convicted criminals? Why should the state have to do torture in such a half-assed way, if the population at large feels that the criminals have made their choice. Perhaps you think prison rape is just what these folks deserve. Perhaps decades of solitary confinement is what you think these folks deserve. Why beat around the bush! Why not start a campaign for torture of prisoners. After all, they’ve been found guilty.
If you don’t want to start such a campaign, why are you supportive of the existence of inhumane conditions in prisons?
Being in a section with at least seven other people isn’t solitary. You have people to talk to. These murderers get fed three times a day which is more than a lot of people, they get better health care than anyone in the country, and they don’t have to be in the shu, they have the ability to stop the gang interaction and get out. Tired of hearing how bad it is when the people they killed have nothing!!
You wrote;
“The magazine has done some of the best reporting on our country’s prison system over the last couple of years.”
How would you know that? Did Mother Jones interview the officers working there? Those inmates are the worst of the worst and have great influence over the gangs throughout the state prison system. Much of the violence/assults of inmates is orchestrated by those in PBSP secured housing unit. Violence increases when they are released back into the general population and retaliation against them for the attacks they orchestrated while in PBSP. The PBSP secured housing unit is designed to protect the state (including inmates) from the convicts sent there and to protect them from other inmates.