California's Prisons

America likes locking people up. The much-quoted statistics are the US has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its prisoners. In California, mass incarceration has been the policy for more than 30 years, but that’s now being challenged…by judges. The state has been forced to cut prison numbers and now courts are being asked to rule on the treatment of mentally ill prisoners and the widespread, long-term use of solitary confinement, which has sparked a series of hunger strikes in California, and the UN considers as torture. Alastair Leithead has this special report for @BBCnewshour @aleithead #California November 2013