California officials say the state’s three-week hunger strike by prisoners is over after some inmate demands were met, says NPR. Advocates for prisoners couldn’t confirm the strike had ended. Advocates for prison reform say there are much wider problems to address — many of them related to the way the gang system pervades the prisons. Hundreds of prisoners started refusing to eat on July 1.
Terry Thornton, a state prison spokeswoman, said inmates will now get wool hats in cold weather, wall calendars, and some educational opportunities. She says officials will review gang management and isolation policies. She says under current policy, someone is only put in the isolation unit after careful review. “An investigator has to take all the information and it has to be from multiple sources,” Thornton says. “You can’t just look at one tattoo and say, ‘Oh, that person is a gang member.'”