Hundreds of anti-Wall Street demonstrators and prison reform activists joined forces outside San Quentin State Prison in California on Monday to protest high incarceration rates and living conditions for inmates. Speakers said the state's sentencing laws were too strict. They called for an end to solitary confinement and the death penalty and said children should not be tried as adults. "I myself experienced more than 14 months of solitary confinement," said Sarah Shourd, 33, an American imprisoned in Iran after being arrested while hiking near the Iraq border in 2009. "After only two months, my mind began to slip." She was joined at the protest by Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who spent more than two years in prison in Iran after being arrested with Shourd, and by former members of the Black Panthers African-American activist group who spoke of a history of problems at the San Quentin prison. Activist Barbara Becnel said prisoners were drawing inspiration fr...
Striving for a World without Capital Punishment