By Julia Reynolds
Monterey County Herald
MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. — State prison officials Tuesday said they plan to reconsider criteria for placing inmates in the state’s highest-security units, where gang leaders and, some say, those wrongfully labeled as such are routinely housed.
The announcement came at an Assembly hearing in Sacramento on the state’s prison Security Housing Units, known as SHUs.
The ultra-austere conditions inside the state’s three Security Housing Units have raised concerns since 1990, when an inmate class action suit led federal Judge Thelton Henderson to issue injunctions aimed at eliminating excessive force, improving health care and removing prisoners with mental illness from the unit at Pelican Bay State Prison.
Full Story: Cailifornia to reconsider prisoner placement in highest security unit