Challenging Prolonged Solitary Confinement in United States prisons: The Pelican Bay Story
When: 04 December 2025, 18:00 — 20:00
Venue: Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
Starting in the late 1980s the United States prison systems constructed 57 supermaximum prisons designed to house the “worst of the worst” prisoners. One of these, Pelican Bay State Penitentiary SHU got the reputation for being one of the most draconian prisons in the United States.
In 2011, the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) held over 1000 prisoners in indeterminate, prolonged solitary confinement. They were confined in 7 by 10 foot windowless cells for over 22 hours per day. Phone calls and contact visits with friends and family were prohibited. Direct communication with other prisoners was forbidden. These prisoners only left their cells for approximately 1 ½ hours per day to recreate alone in an empty area somewhat larger than their cells. There were no educational or vocational programs, and these prisoners had not seen trees, birds, or grass, nor meaningfully touched another human being for years. By 2011, over 500 men had spent over a decade, and almost 100 over two decades, alone in these conditions.
That year thousands of California prisoners went on hunger strike in protest of the indeterminate solitary confinement at Pelican Bay, which was followed up by two other hunger strikes eventually involving over 3000 California prisoners. These hunger strikes attracted world wide attention, with major newspapers in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries reporting on the strikes and prisoner conditions. The strikes also led to a major class action lawsuit, which eventually resulted in virtually all the prisoners being released from solitary confinement and California ending indeterminate solitary confinement.
This seminar will explore the reasons behind the rise of solitary confinement in the United States, the challenge to solitary confinement as torture, and how the prisoners and their lawyers succeeded in dramatically changing California’s use of the practice.