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Nearly two dozen state prisons last week imposed sweeping restrictions on their incarcerated population — including shutting off all outside communication. Now, hundreds of prisoners are reported to be on a hunger strike to protest the system’s largest restrictions since the pandemic.

The corrections department “significantly limited” the daily activities and movement of roughly 34,000 incarcerated people on June 12 in response to a recent uptick in violence, overdoses and contraband, according to its website.

Under the restrictions, incarcerated people are forced to remain primarily in their cell or dormitory. All in-person visitation, programming, phone access and tablet communications has been suspended. Medical care and other essential services will continue, the department said.

The department did not say when the restrictions will end.

Legal experts and advocates called the department’s move drastic and said the approach is solitary confinement in all but name.

“It’s a very lonely space to be in,” said Warren Hands, supervising parole success advocate at UnCommon Law, a nonprofit. “Addiction is real. Mental health issues are real. And they are exacerbated by these lockdowns.”

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Department Cites Safety Concerns

Corrections Secretary Jeff Macomber said in a written statement that the department has an obligation to ensure public safety for staff, incarcerated individuals and the communities.

“We recognize the concerns of the incarcerated and their families and how this impacts participation in rehabilitation programs and visiting,” he said.

The department published a press release late Tuesday that listed a number of armed assaults on staff members, armed battery on incarcerated people, and several riots in the weeks leading up to the restrictions, but did not attribute those incidents to specific prisons.

Families of incarcerated people say the restrictions are cruel and collective punishment. Angel Torrez said it feels unbearable to have no contact with his father, who is incarcerated at Folsom State Prison.

“I wonder if he’s safe and sound,” said Torrez. The department “is playing propaganda warfare. They are professionals of abstract, obtuse, and vague statements that are generated to keep families in the dark.”

At prisons across the country, lockdowns have become increasingly common due to staffing shortages. In California, the corrections department has imposed broad restrictions on incarcerated people twice in the span of three months.

Prisons Report ‘Surge in Violence’

The last restrictions on March 8 were placed on nearly a dozen prisons due to a “surge in violence against staff and incarcerated people.” They ended on April 11. During that time, at least three incarcerated people were killed and one officer reportedly was attacked.

In recent years, the department has come under fire for its approach to managing violent incidents and contraband. It was criticized by a Sacramento County Superior Court Judge in 2022 for creating violence when it merged incarcerated people from the general population with those who were previously protected, such as informants, bypassing established procedures in the process.

The following year, an oversight agency found that drugs continued to get inside California prisons during the pandemic when public health protocols prohibited visits.

“It’s an open secret that staff are the primary vector of contraband into the prison,” said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor at UCLA.

She said a lockdown may be a useful tool if it’s done in a limited way, but the department’s blanket policy appears to be hard to defend.

“This is a blunt instrument when they should be using a scalpel,” she said. “The question is the relationship between the ill that they are trying to wrestle with and the strategy that they are adopting to try to address it. I remain unconvinced that a lockdown of this scale is necessary to address this problem.”

Hunger Strike in Salinas

One day after the corrections department implemented the restrictions, incarcerated people at Salinas Valley State Prison formally declared a hunger strike.

“This action arises in response to persistent and unlawful practices by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, including the use of indiscriminate lockdowns, deprivation of rehabilitative and constitutional rights, and collective punishment of the incarcerated population,” they wrote in a letter provided to CalMatters. “This protest is not rooted in defiance but in our firm demand that (the corrections department) adhere to its obligations under the U.S. Constitution, California Penal Code, and Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations.”

Corrections spokesperson Terri Hardy said the department has procedures to monitor and evaluate hunger strikes.

Brooke Terpstra, a member of the anti-prison group Oakland Abolition & Solidarity, estimated that upwards of 500 people are participating in the strike. He suspects incarcerated people at other prisons with restrictions will join.

“All hunger strikes are notable, but this is a major occurrence,” he said. “(The department’s) unified collective punishment has produced a unified collective response. It’s inspiring.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.