Pelican Bay State Prison

Facilities

Pelican Bay opened in 1989. Pelican Bay's grounds and operations are physically divided. Half of the prison holds Level IV inmates in a General Population (GP) environment with outside exercise courts and yards. The other half of the prison contains the prisons best-known feature: an X-shaped cluster of white buildings and barren ground known as the Security Housing Unit, or SHU. An electric fence surrounds the entire perimeter.

The 8-by-10-foot (2.4 m × 3.0 m) cells of the SHU are made of smooth, poured concrete with perforated cell fronts and doors. There are no windows located within the cells. Instead, there are fluorescent lights, which the inmates can control. SHU inmates are confined to their assigned cell for up to twenty-two hours a day, looking out through a perforated steel door at a solid concrete wall. Food is delivered by correctional officers twice a day (breakfast, sack lunch, and dinner), through a slot in the cell door.

Each of the twenty-two housing units located in the SHU has an armed correctional officer in a Control Booth. Control booths are located in the center of each housing unit. The control officer can view into all six pods in the housing unit, from their central vantage point. The control officer controls the doors throughout the housing unit, which contains six pods. Each pod contains eight cells. The officer can supervise the release of inmates assigned to the housing unit. The control officer can allow one, or two inmates, if they are cell mates (cellies), out of their assigned cell to shower or exercise. Inmates are allowed to exercise for up to ten hours of court-mandated, outdoor exercise per week. Exercise takes place in a concrete yard, which extends the length of three cells, and has a roof partially open to the sky.

Alleged psychological effect

Inmates, their lawyers, and prisoner advocate groups have argued that confinement in the SHU is cruel and unusual punishment, due to severe conditions. Contrary to popular belief, the SHU is not composed of solitary confinement cells. Inmates housed in the same pod can talk with each other and even see each other when released from their assigned cells. The SHU consists of twenty-two housing units, with six pods per housing unit and eight cells per pod. Some psychiatrists and psychologists who support inmates housed in the SHU have described a "SHU syndrome", a condition which, they say, affects inmates who spend more than a few months in isolation. The symptoms reportedly resemble those of post-traumatic stress disorder, including hallucinations, depression, anxiety, anger, and suicide. The cause of most of these symptoms is isolation; most SHU inmates experience isolation for 22 hours a day with limited human contact other than receiving meals through a slot in the cell door.

Hunger strikes

PBSP, SHU prisoners have organized hunger strikes in protest of conditions there, chiefly the punishment of solitary confinement. In 2002, a reported 60 SHU inmates began a hunger strike.

Another hunger strike was reported to have begun on July 1, 2011. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) reported that "less than two dozen" were refusing food. The Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition reported close to 100% participation in the SHU on the first day, with the strike spreading to the Pelican Bay general population on the second day. The Coalition also reported that the strike had spread to Corcoran and Folsom prisons, with over 100 prisoners participating. The CDCR subsequently stated that 6,600 inmates had refused food in the first days of the strike, and that after five days, more than 2,000 remained on strike. Most inmates reportedly consumed food purchased from the canteen; however, others were refusing all food with the stated intention to strike indefinitely. SHU prisoner Mutop DuGuya stated, "No one wants to die. Yet under this current system of what amounts to intense torture, what choice do we have? If one is to die, it will be on our own terms."

On July 8, 2013, inmates resumed the July 2011 hunger strike, due to alleged broken promises and "cruel" conditions, with upwards of 29,000 prisoners across California joining in the hunger strike. These conditions were to end group punishment and administrative abuse, abolish the debriefing policy, and modify active/inactive gang status criteria, comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement, Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food, Expand and Provide Constructive Programing and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates. End Group Punishment and Administrative Abuse demand was as a result of individual inmates rule violations.

Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria demand was a result of "gang members" being placed in isolation. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement demand is in response to prisoners not being able to engage in meaningful self-help treatments or have contact with anyone. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food demand is in response to prisoners using food as an excuse to punish inmates. The last demand of Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates is in response to prisoners mistreatment. The examples they stated for this demand were getting photos, weekly phone calls, packages, more TV, and expand visiting time.

Lawsuit and Termination of Unlimited Isolation Policy

In May 2012, California's prison system faced a lawsuit from the Center for Constitutional Rights, Legal Services for inmates with Children, and other California attorneys on behalf of ten men incarcerated in the SHU. The plaintiffs were all housed in the SHU for 11 to 22 years, some having been transferred directly from other SHUs. The suit claims that the inmates "have been incarcerated California’s Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit ("SHU") for an unconscionably long period of time without meaningful review of their placement", that "California's uniquely harsh regime of prolonged solitary confinement at Pelican Bay is inhumane and debilitating", and that "[t]he solitary confinement regime at Pelican Bay violates the United States Constitution's requirement of due process and prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment".

In August, 2015, as a result of the aforementioned class-action lawsuit, California agreed to end its unlimited isolation policy. Inmates are no longer isolated as a preventative measure; only those who commit new crimes while incarcerated are eligible for up to five years of isolation. Since the lawsuit's settlement, hundreds of inmates who had served years in Pelican Bay's SHU have been transferred to other prisons and are now doing their time in general population settings.

Television and film

In the fictional series Life, Detective Charlie Crews spends twelve years in Pelican Bay for a triple homicide he did not commit, part of it spent in the SHU, as the background of the series' plot. In the TV series The Shield, the main character, Vic Mackey regularly threatens recalcitrant suspects with only the name of the prison. In the 2001 film Training Day, Alonzo Harris, the character portrayed by Denzel Washington, tells everyone in one of the last scenes that they are going to "be playing basketball in Pelican Bay" if they mess with him, continuing to say "SHU program, Nigga" referencing the solitary confinement portion of the prison. Pelican Bay is also referenced in two films directed by Michael Mann. In Heat, the psychopathic character Waingro, portrayed by Kevin Gage, admits to having spent time in "the SHU at Pelican Bay" during his most recent stint in prison. In Miami Vice, the characters of Crockett and Tubbs, portrayed by Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, are given fictitious criminal identities before they go undercover, which among other things imply that the two met while serving time in Pelican Bay. And in S05E10 of Major Crimes, a prisoner named Hecht is threatened with a transfer to Pelican Bay and the; "worst of the worst", if he does not cooperate, which he then does.

Notable inmates