Thousands of California inmates who have spent years in solitary confinement will move back into the general prison population as part of a lawsuit settlement with the state.
The settlement, announced Tuesday, ends the class-action suit brought on behalf of thousands of inmates who had filled the Pelican Bay State Prison isolation wing for alleged gang affiliation. Confinement in windowless, soundproof cells remains a possible punishment for prisoners who commit crimes behind bars, but it's no longer a tool for indefinitely segregating rival gang members.
More than 500 prisoners had spent more than a decade locked in solitary at the time the lawsuit was filed in 2012, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the groups suing the state. Seventy-eight had been in the Security Housing Unit, or SHU, for more than 20 years.
“This settlement represents a monumental victory for prisoners and an important step toward our goal of ending solitary confinement in California, and across the country,” said a statement from the plaintiffs.
[For more of this story, written by Michael McLaughlin, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...hp_ref=whats-working]
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