California: Prison hunger strike ends

It finally came to an end.

The hunger strike by prison inmates that had been taking place in a California prison for almost two months has ended.

Inmates had been refusing meals as a form of protest against solitary confinement for months.

On Thursday, Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard announced that all inmates now accepted to receive their meals.

According to the BBC, at the beginning of the strike, in July, as many as thirty thousand prisoners were refusing to eat. 

Things were looking good this week as this number went down to a hundred prisoners only, forty of which had been on strike continuously from the start.

State Senator Loni Hancock and Assemblymember Tom Ammiana pledged to hold public hearings on Friday on the policies on solitary confinement. 

The protest ended with this announcement. 

Officials were concerned about the inmates health throughout this strike and had authorized force feeding if necessary, but apart from vitamins that were given out, no inmate was force fed.

Solitary confinement is a serious issue in Californian prisons, with cases where inmates spent more than twenty-two hours a day in isolation for more than ten years.

STORY WRITTEN BY: Audrey Folliot

FLICKR PHOTO BY: Steve Rhodes