Nearly two dozen state prisons last week imposed sweeping restrictions on their incarcerated population -- including shutting off all outside communication. Now, hundreds of prisoners are reported to be on a hunger strike to protest the system's largest restrictions since the pandemic.
CalMatters reports the corrections department "significantly limited" the daily activities and movement of roughly 34,000 incarcerated people on June 12 in response to a recent uptick in violence, overdoses and contraband.
Under the restrictions, incarcerated people are forced to remain primarily in their cell or dormitory. All in-person visitation, programming, phone access and tablet communications has been suspended. Medical care and other essential services will continue, the department said.
The department did not say when the restrictions will end.
Legal experts and advocates called the department's move drastic and said the approach is solitary confinement in all but name.
