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Hunger

By Jonathan Simor

Today, July 8, 2013, prisoners in California's supermax "SHU" units (for Secured Housing Units), are commencing a hunger strike and work stoppage, their second in two years (read the solidarity statement here).  This is tragic.  Hunger strikes are an extraordinary act of self deprivation by people who have almost nothing.  They can result in the deaths of those involved and compel prison staff to engage in degrading practices like force-feeding to prevent that. This desperate step indicates the depravity of California's SHU policy and its recalcitrance in reconsidering it in the face of mounting criticism from human rights organizations (read Amnesty International's 2012 report here) and the lack of any empirical evidence that this exceptional penal method is justified...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on July 08, 2013 (boomark / email).