USA: The edge of endurance: Prison conditions in California's Security Housing Units

Index Number: AMR 51/060/2012
Date Published: 27 September 2012
Categories: USA

Hundreds of prisoners have been confined in California’s high-security segregation units (Security Housing Units, SHUs) for 10 or more years in conditions of severe isolation and reduced sensory stimulation. This report describes Amnesty International’s concerns about these conditions. It also examines recent proposals put forward by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to reform the method for assigning prisoners to the units and to provide a route out of SHUs through a protracted four-step process lasting at least four years.