...Solitary Watch reported that in 2011 “nearly all of the 1,100 men in the [segregation unit] at Pelican Bay State Prison had been in solitary for five years or more,” some for as many as twenty years. The dire conditions prompted a major lawsuit led by the Center for Constitutional Rights, along with widespread hunger strikes and protests in 2013, which eventually paved the way for significant restrictions on the use of solitary. A settlement with the state that effectively prompted many releases from solitary, as well as an agreement to overhaul restrictive housing policies. ...

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