Ten days after Texas prisoners around the state began a hunger strike to protest the state’s harsh solitary confinement practices, dozens of men are still refusing food, and some are reportedly losing pounds of weight a day.
Texas prisoners in solitary confinement are kept in single-person cells for at least 22 hours a day. When staffing levels allow — which can be rare — they get out of their cells to shower or exercise alone in caged outdoor areas. Thousands of prisoners are kept in such conditions, and they are typically held in isolation for years.
In November, more than 500 Texas prisoners had been in solitary confinement for more than a decade, according to prison officials.
Under department policy, prisoners are assigned to solitary if they are escape risks, have committed violent assaults or serious offenses in prison, or are confirmed members of dangerous prison gangs. For months, men at multiple Texas prisons have been urging prison officials and lawmakers to move away from the practice of putting — and keeping — prisoners in solitary because they are affiliated with a gang, even if they have had no behavioral problems.
Without a notable response to their proposal, they began the hunger strike last week Tuesday, on the first day of the state Legislature
Brittany Robertson, an independent activist who has coordinated with men in more than a dozen prisons before and during the hunger strike, said she estimated hundreds of men began refusing food last week. On Jan. 13, the first day the Texas Department of Criminal Justice officially recognized the strike because three days had passed, the prison system reported 72 prisoners were starving themselves.
By Tuesday of last week, the number dropped to 51, according to TDCJ spokesperson Amanda Hernandez. On Thursday, she said 38 prisoners were still refusing food.
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