1200 Solitary Lives.

While driving home from my meeting today, I was able to listen to a two part story on NPR's "All Things Considered" about the SHU--Security Housing Unit--at Pelican Bay. You can listen here. It's about 30 minutes long and provides detailed information about what it is like to spend 23 hours a day in an 8' x 8' cell.

Interesting to me is that no one is there for the crime they committed to get into prison but for their behavior, mostly gang related, on the inside. BUT, the most interesting thing to me is that over 90% of these men will be release with very little effort to prepare them to re-enter society. Imagine spending six years with no human contact and then, within weeks of leaving solitary, being back in the real world. What do you think happens to these men?

Almost 95 percent of the inmates in Pelican Bay's SHU are scheduled to be released back into the public at some point. They'll spend a few weeks in a local prison before rejoining society, with little, if any, preparation for how to live around people on the outside. And for every inmate that leaves, there is another one waiting to take his place.