A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not solid food. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are named dry hunger strikers.
Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is a supermax prison facility in Crescent City, California. The 275-acre (111 ha) prison takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about 2 mi (3.2 km) to the west.
John Grosvenor Rowland is an American politician, author, former radio host, and convicted felon who served as the 86th governor of Connecticut from 1995 to 2004.
Mary Carolyn "Jodi" Rell is an American former politician who served as the 87th governor of Connecticut from 2004 to 2011. Rell also served as the state's 105th lieutenant governor of Connecticut from 1995 to 2004 under Governor John G. Rowland, and became governor after Rowland resigned from office. As of 2024, Rell is the very last Republican and woman to officially serve as Governor of Connecticut to date.
California State Prison, Corcoran (COR) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Corcoran, in Kings County, California. It is also known as Corcoran State Prison, CSP-C, CSP-COR, CSP-Corcoran, and Corcoran I. The facility is just north of the newer California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran.
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term gavage refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose (nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into the stomach.
The Cellular Jail, also known as 'Kālā Pānī', was a British colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The prison was used by the colonial government of India for the purpose of exiling criminals and political prisoners. Many notable independence activists, including Sardar Singh Artillery, Diwan Singh Kalepani, Yogendra Shukla, Batukeshwar Dutt, Shadan Chandra Chatterjee, Sohan Singh, Vinayak Savarkar, Hare Krishna Konar, Shiv Verma, Allama Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi, and Sudhanshu Dasgupta were imprisoned here during the struggle for India's independence. Today, the complex serves as a national memorial monument.
Michael Bruce Ross was an American serial killer who was executed by the state of Connecticut in 2005. He was the last person executed in Connecticut before the state ended capital punishment in 2012. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 2015, converting the sentences of the state's remaining death row inmates to life in prison without parole.
The Southern Ohio Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison located just outside Lucasville in Scioto County, Ohio. The prison was constructed in 1972. As of 2023, the warden is Cindy Davis.
Philip Anthony Giordano is the former Republican mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut, and a convicted sex offender. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to Italian parents and his family moved to the United States when he was two years old.
Michael P. Lawlor is an American politician, criminal justice professor, and lawyer from Connecticut. A Democrat, he served as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1987 to 2011, representing the 99th district in East Haven. Lawlor resigned from the legislature on January 4, 2011 to serve in Dan Malloy's administration as undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the Office of Policy and Management.
Detainees held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps have initiated both individual and widespread hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, and camp medical authorities have initiated force-feeding programs.
The Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strikes were a series of prisoner protests at the U.S. detention camp Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The first hunger strikes began in 2002 when the camp first opened, but the secrecy of the camp's operations prevented news of those strikes from reaching the public. The first widely reported hunger strikes occurred in 2005.
On July 23, 2007, Linda Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky invaded the residence of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut. Though initially planning only to rob the house, Hayes and Komisarjevsky murdered Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit. Their father, Dr. William Petit, escaped with severe injuries.
Selina Martin was a member of the suffragette movement in the early 20th century. She was arrested several times. Her Hunger Strike Medal given 'for Valour' by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was sold at auction in Nottingham in 2019.
Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that a court-mandated population limit was necessary to remedy a violation of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment constitutional rights. Justice Kennedy filed the majority opinion of the 5 to 4 decision, affirming a decision by a three judge panel of the United States District Court for the Eastern and Northern Districts of California which had ordered California to reduce its prison population to 137.5% of design capacity within two years.
The 2013 California prisoner hunger strike started on July 8, 2013, involving over 29,000 inmates in protest of the state's use of solitary confinement practices and ended on September 5, 2013. The hunger strike was organized by inmates in long term solitary in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in protest of inmates housed there that were in solitary confinement indefinitely for having ties to gangs. Another hunger strike that added to the movement started the week before in High Desert State Prison. The focus of the High Desert State Prison hunger strike was to demand cleaner facilities, better food and better access to the library.
The Prisoner Human Rights Movement was launched in 2011 by Pelican Bay State Prison inmates in response to large numbers of inmates being moved from general prison populations to solitary-confinement units after allegations of gang affiliation or political organizing. Its goal is to improve living conditions for inmates in California.
Matthew Steven Johnson is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least three female sex workers from 2000 to 2001. He is also suspected in the deaths of another two women, but hasn't been charged in their deaths. Johnson was convicted of the three murders and was sentenced to 180 years in prison.
The Connecticut Juvenile Training School (CJTS) was a juvenile prison in Middletown, Connecticut, that operated under the Connecticut Department of Children and Families from 2001 to 2018. Established in proximity to the Connecticut Valley Hospital (CVH), CJTS held male inmates age 12–17 with capacity for 240 inmates. In 2021, Connecticut governor Ned Lamont announced that he was considering reopening the prison to hold immigrant children.