The American Friends Service Committee finds this call by prisoners for a sweeping end to hostilities unprecedented. This is an opportunity that cannot be ignored. By their call, the prisoners are addressing the tensions between racial groups that have been used by the Department to justify long-term isolation.
Historic Call from Prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison to End Racial Hostility in State Prisons

Reforming Solitary Confinement at Pelican Bay Prison

Nearly 4,000 inmates in the Security Housing Units in California’s prisons endure harrowing conditions of extreme isolation for years and even decades in concrete, soundproof cells measuring only six feet by eight feet, leaving only to exercise for about an hour a day in windowless “dog runs.”