Texas Prisoner Hunger Strike Continues

Texas inmates near their second week of a hunger strike protesting the state’s use of solitary confinement, which has targeted chiefly gang-affiliated inmates, placing them in isolation regardless of whether they committed any wrongdoing under supervision, Ed Pilkington reports for the Guardian. 

Conflicting estimates place the total number of inmates involved in the hunger strike between 72 and 138. Inmates with apparent affiliations to gangs, such as tattoos, are placed in solitary confinement in Texas indefinitely, regardless of whether they committed any wrongdoing while in prison. Many inmates seemingly never leave isolation. The state holds 3,000 prisoners in solitary confinement and among them, 500 were isolated for over a decade and 138 for two decades.