In October 2022, a large number of residents in solitary confinement in Teas prisons, sent a proposal, via snail mail, to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and Texas lawmakers outlining their concerns about living conditions. They identified what they considered inhumane conditions and recommended changes. Furthermore, they stated that if no response was received by January 10, 2023, they would begin a hunger strike to draw attention to their issues.
TDCJ did not respond and the strike began with about 300 participants in 15 different prisons. As days went by the numbers dwindled and after 20 days the strike appeared to be over. Then some of those who had stopped resumed after some changes they had been offered never materialized. The strike did bring local and national attention to the issue of how and when solitary confinement, or restrictive housing/security detention is used. PBS, NPR, Texas NPR, and the Texas Tribune are among some of the media outlets who reported on the strike. The most recent one was by Elizabeth Findell in the Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-inmates-wage-hunger-strikes-to-protest-solitary-confinement-e7646b4e
U.S.
Texas Inmates Wage Hunger Strikes to Protest
Solitary Confinement
More than 500 Texas inmates have spent a decade housed alone
Solitary confinement keeps inmates in their cells 22 to 24 hours a day, with periodic removal for showers or solitary
recreation.
By Elizabeth Findell Follow
Feb. 10, 2023 8:00 am ET
For 17 years, Guadalupe Constante has been alone in a 5-foot-by-9-foot cell, spending hours at
a time pacing the small space, he said.
The 44-year-old, who is midway through a 35-year sentence for aggravated robbery, is one of the Texas state prisoners held in solitary confinement because of membership in prison gangs. Last month, he and dozens of others stopped eating.
The hunger strike has moved among prison units, seeking to draw attention to solitary confinement practices that inmates and their advocates say are cruel and inhumane.
“No contact other than with the guards putting on handcuffs,” Mr. Constante wrote in a message earlier this month. “I think people are finally waking up to try to get change.”
A month after more than 106 Texas state prisoners began refusing food, 12 were actively hunger striking Wednesday, meaning they had stopped eating for at least three days, according to the prison system. The strikes come as a new lawsuit is targeting Texas solitary confinement of prisoners on death row.
Nearly 600 inmates in Texas have spent more than a decade in solitary confinement—making the state an extreme outlier among the 35 states in the analysis—according to a study by Yale Law School last year. Half the states reported no prisoners who had been housed alone more than three years.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which manages Texas prisons, said it uses such housing judiciously. The department said in a statement that less than 3% of Texas prisoners are held in solitary confinement, which it calls security detention, and that the population has dropped 65% since 2007.
As of 2021, Texas was one of 12 states that automatically placed men on death row in long- term solitary confinement. One of them, Florida, last year ended the practice after a civil- rights lawsuit.
Advocates of prison reform say extended solitary confinement is unacceptable. Lasting more than 15 consecutive days, it is internationally recognized by the U.N. and human-rights organizations such as Amnesty International as torture. Additionally, they say, it causes extreme mental-health problems to inmates, which will make them more likely to cause problems in society when they are released.
There were 3,141 Texas prisoners in solitary as of November; such inmates are kept in their cells 22 to 24 hours a day, with periodic removal for showers or solitary recreation. They areable to communicate with people outside the prison via paid messages on tablets, or letters.
The department attributed the hunger strike to gang members attempting to gain powerwithin the prison system. “If known prison gang members in state custody don’t like their current confinement conditions, they are free to renounce their gang and we will offer them a
pathway back into the general population,” the department wrote in a statement. Inmates said the program to renounce gang membership requires inmates to provide information on other members, putting themselves and their families in danger. A department spokesman said members are debriefed concerning their activity within the gang.
The hunger strikers are calling for the department to make solitary-confinement policies based on inmate behavior, rather than gang affiliation, said Brittany Robertson, a prison-reform advocate who has been working with the inmates. Based on behavior, they would also like to have recreation time with one to two other people, she said. While some prisoners are, in waves, continuing to refuse food, no one has maintained the strike longer than 20 days, according to the prison system. At least four men required medical intervention, a spokeswoman said last week. One of them was Edwin Schneider, 61, who is
serving a life sentence for aggravated robbery and has spent over a decade in solitary confinement. Mr. Schneider said in a message that he felt close to death after 12 days of refusing to eat. Prison guards told him his kidneys weren’t producing electrolytes. On day 14, Mr. Schneider said he gave in, accepted a medical IV and began to eat again.
The hunger strike unfolded as prisoners on death row began their own challenge to Texas confinement practices. A federal lawsuit filed Jan. 26 argues that the Texas blanket policy of keeping men on death row in solitary confinement is unconstitutional.The lawsuit, filed initially on behalf of four inmates, is designed to become a class-action suit on behalf of all 185 men currently sentenced to death in Texas, attorneys said. A 2018 challenge to death-row practices in Virginia that were similar to Texas resulted in the prison system voluntarily revising its policies to allow at least an hour a day of recreation with other inmates and some family visitation. In 2021, a class-action suit in Louisiana forced the state to give prisoners on death row at least four hours a day in a group setting, including for meals, recreation and worship.
“Texas was an obvious next target for a number of reasons,” said Catherine Bratic, the attorney leading the case. “There’s a particularly large death-row inmate population and the conditions are particularly inhumane.”
A spokesman said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation. The hunger strike is unrelated to the suit, Ms. Bratic said, but said she believes it illustrates the brutality of solitary confinement.
Write to Elizabeth Findell at [email protected]