Inside Pelican Bay: California's Maximum-Security Prison

On July 8, 2013, more than 30,000 prisoners across California refused their meals on the same day. The call came from one short corridor of windowless cells at Pelican Bay State Prison. Pelican Bay opened in 1989 on California's far north coast. Half of it was built as a Security Housing Unit: men held in 80-square-foot windowless cells for 22½ hours a day, sometimes for decades. This Cellblock Dossier investigation goes inside the unit as a federal court described it in 1995, follows Todd Ashker and the rival alleged gang leaders who organized hunger strikes from isolation, and tracks the 2015 settlement that changed how California uses solitary confinement. Then we look at what Pelican Bay is today. Gang affiliations mentioned are allegations made by prison officials. Historical conditions are described as documented at the time and do not describe the prison today. ⏱ TIMELINE 0:00 Thirty thousand refused meals 0:50 Why Pelican Bay was built 2:44 A prison within the prison 5:11 Control and its consequences 7:19 When isolation became years 10:24 The protest beyond the walls 13:42 What changed 16:28 Pelican Bay today 18:28 How long, and on what evidence? 📂 SOURCES – COURT RECORDS & OFFICIAL REPORTS • Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. Supp. 1146 (N.D. Cal. 1995) • Ashker v. Governor of California, Settlement Agreement (N.D. Cal., 1 Sep 2015) • Ashker v. Newsom, 81 F.4th 863 (9th Cir. 2023) • California Senate, analysis of SB 759 (27 Apr 2015), citing CDCR data • CDCR, Pelican Bay State Prison facility page; 2023 Master Plan Annual Report; Inside CDCR (2022, 2024, 2025) 📰 SOURCES – REPORTING • NPR Fresh Air (6 Mar 2014), Benjamin Wallace-Wells and Craig Haney • Associated Press (19 Aug 2013) • KQED News (22 Mar 2011; 4 Sep 2016) • Victoria Law, Waging Nonviolence (7 Nov 2014) • Center for Constitutional Rights (3 Mar 2022) 🎬 ABOUT THE VISUALS This documentary combines court records, official reports, archival and public-domain photographs, original graphics and AI-assisted illustrative reconstructions. Reconstructed scenes are not archival recordings and do not show the real people or cells described. Generic stock footage is illustrative and does not show Pelican Bay. 📷 CREDITS Pelican Bay State Prison aerial photograph (27 July 2009), Jelson25, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Crescent City, CA (2012), Mike, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Photographs of Pelican Bay State Prison and its programs: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (public domain). Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). Map data: Natural Earth. Stock footage: Pexels. Music: "Mysterious Dark Background" and "Ambient Soundscape for Noir and Suspense" by Megalix; "Dark Mysterious Soundscape" by Universfield (Pixabay). Where would you draw the line between keeping a prison safe and keeping a person apart for years? Tell us in the comments. 🔔 Subscribe to Cellblock Dossier for true crime built from the record. #CellblockDossier #PelicanBay #TrueCrime #PrisonDocumentary #SolitaryConfinement #CaliforniaPrisons #HungerStrike #Supermax #CourtRecords #PrisonHistory