| Pelican Bay State Prison |
Article Index for Pelican Bay |
Shopping Pelican |
Website Links For Pelican Bay |
Information AboutPelican Bay State Prison |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PELICAN BAY STATE PRISON | |
| prisons in california | |
| supermax prisons | |
| del norte county, california | |
|
Pelican Bay opened in 1989 principally to house the growing population of maximum-security and high-security risk inmates in the California prison system. The facility is sited in a remote forested area 11 miles from the California-Oregon state line and far from California's major metropolitan areas, 370 miles north of San Francisco and more than 750 miles north of Los Angeles. Originally designed to house 2,550 prisoners, as of 2006, Pelican Bay houses 3,301 prisoners, nearly all of which are classified as "Level IV" maximum-security. Pelican Bay's grounds and operations are physically divided. Half of the prison holds Level IV prisoners in a "general population" environment. The other half of the prison contains Pelican Bay's best-known feature: an X-shaped cluster of white buildings set apart by electrified fencing and barren ground known as the Security Housing Unit , or SHU, a Supermax -type control-unit facility where prisoners identified as gang members; prisoners with a history of violence, crimes or serious rules violations within prison; and other prisoners presenting serious management concerns are incarcerated. The Pelican Bay SHU was one of the first such facilities in modern American history explicitly planned and built as a control-unit facility. Prisoner advocates have argued that SHU imprisonment is Cruel And Unusual Punishment , due to the lack of stimulation, activity and natural light given to these prisoners. Criticism has also been raised regarding the procedures used to classify prisoners as gang members or affiliates, who are subject to indefinite assignment to the SHU. However, conditions are supervised by the federal courts subject to the ''Madrid'' consent decree. EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|