Inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison in Northern California are on a hunger strike, protesting conditions in the prison’s security housing units, where hundreds of men are held in isolation, in some cases for decades. The strikers are seeking limits on isolation and an easing of restrictions. California corrections officials say the units are humane, and inmates in security housing units are affiliated with prison gangs that run criminal networks behind bars and on the streets.
But an investigation by The Center for Investigative Reporting has found that not all the men held in these units for years were sent there for violent gang behavior. Some have been confined under a policy that allows tattoos, drawings and books as evidence of a gang affiliation.
CREDITS:
Reporter: Michael Montgomery
Producer/Editor: Adithya Sambamurthy
Camera/Sound: Singeli Agnew, Adithya Sambamurthy, Roberto Daza, Owen Wesson
Graphics: Sam Ward, David Ritsher
Still Photographs: Adithya Sambamurthy
Senior Producer: Stephen Talbot
Executive Producer: Susanne Reber
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work with as many people as possible. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:
PRINT
Do not change the story. Do not edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
Please credit us early in the coverage. Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Will Evans, Reveal.
If republishing our stories, please also include this language at the end of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.”
Include all links from the story, and please link to us at https://www.revealnews.org.
PHOTOS
You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared and do not change them.
If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Digital Engagement Producer Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from Getty and The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.
DATA
If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Data Editor Soo Oh, soh@revealnews.org.
IN GENERAL
We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
If you plan to republish our content, you must notify us republish@revealnews.org or email Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.
Please note, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org.
Video: Indefinite Isolation
by Adithya Sambamurthy and Michael Montgomery, Reveal July 26, 2013
Adithya Sambamurthy is a video producer for Reveal, with a background in photojournalism and documentary film. He joined Reveal after working as a staff photographer for The Bay Citizen, a nonprofit journalism organization that merged with The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2012. Sambamurthy previously worked on documentaries for National Geographic, PBS FRONTLINE/World and numerous independent productions. He also worked as a photojournalist at the San Jose Mercury News in California; The News-Press of Fort Myers, Florida; and the St. Petersburg (now Tampa Bay) Times. Since joining Reveal, he has produced, shot and edited stories for the website, as well as for a number of Reveal's broadcast and online partners, including the PBS NewsHour, KQED public television and ABC News. Sambamurthy has been nominated for a national Emmy Award, shared in a George Foster Peabody Award and received commendations from the Society of Professional Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Michael Montgomery is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal. He has led collaborations with the Associated Press, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Frontline, KQED and others.
Previously, Montgomery was a senior reporter at American Public Media, a special correspondent for the BBC and an associate producer with CBS News. He began his career in eastern Europe, covering the fall of communism and wars in former Yugoslavia for the Daily Telegraph and Los Angeles Times. His investigations into human rights abuses in the Balkans led to the arrest and conviction of Serbian and Albanian paramilitaries and creation of a new war crimes court based in The Hague. Montgomery’s honors include Murrow, Peabody, IRE, duPont, Third Coast and Overseas Press Club awards. He is based in Reveal’s Emeryville, California, office.
