Prisoners in solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison ended their 3-day hunger strike Wednesday night after meeting with officials about their concerns.
The remaining men on strike in the prison’s Administrative Control Unit, where prisoners get as little as two hours out of their cell at a time and have limited access to phone calls and entertainment, had not eaten since Monday morning. They were protesting their lack of social interaction, programming and access to medical and mental health care.
On Wednesday evening, they met with staff from the prison and the Maine Department of Corrections and began eating again after the officials “seemed genuinely interested in making those positive changes we’d asked for,” said one of the strikers, Nick Gladu.
The strike ended after one of the remaining participants agreed to join a prison workgroup on restrictive housing — the state’s term for solitary confinement — that is focused on “revising policy with direct input from residents,” said Anna Black, a Department of Corrections spokesperson.