The punishment was severe: He was sent to a special supermax unit at the state’s highest-security prison, Pelican Bay. The facility was designed to isolate men deemed the “worst of the worst.” ...

Pelican Bay, opened in 1989 in Crescent City, became the blueprint for maximum security facilities now known as Supermax prisons. With 1,000 units dedicated to solitary confinement, the conditions ...

In 1995 a federal court examining the Security Housing Unit (SHU) of the Pelican Bay State Prison—a California supermax —found that “many, if not most, inmates in the SHU experience some ...