Human Rights in the Hidden World of State Prisons

On July 1, inmates at the Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border began a hunger strike that ultimately involved 6600 prisoners in 13 of California's 33 institutions. Reporters were not allowed to talk to inmates, but representatives said they demanded caps to be worn in cold weather, calendars on cell walls, more lenient treatment in solitary confinement, and a change in "debriefings" that last so long prisoners are in danger of being labeled as "snitches." The hunger strike is over, but did settling it make things any better?