<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motherjones.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;2012&#x2F;10&#x2F;solitary-confinement-shane-bauer" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motherjones.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;2012&#x2F;10&#x2F;solitary-confine...</a><p>&quot;four years ago Pennington was &quot;validated&quot; by prison staff as an associate of a prison gang (one formed on the inside, as opposed to a street gang). That&#x27;s the reason he and thousands of others are in the SHU with no exit date.&quot;<p>&quot;Gang evidence comes in countless forms. Possession of Machiavelli&#x27;s The Prince, Robert Greene&#x27;s The 48 Laws of Power, or Sun Tzu&#x27;s The Art of War has been invoked as evidence. One inmate&#x27;s validation includes a Christmas card with stars drawn on it—alleged gang symbols—among Hershey&#x27;s Kisses and a candy cane. Another included a poetry booklet the inmate had coauthored with a validated BGF member. One poem reflected on what it was like to feel human touch after 14 years and another warned against spreading HIV. The only reference to violence was the line, &quot;this senseless dying gotta end.&quot;&quot;<p>&quot;THE DECISION to put a man in solitary indefinitely is made at internal hearings that last, prisoners say, about 20 minutes. They are closed-door affairs. CDCR told me I couldn&#x27;t witness one. No one can.&quot;<p>&quot;At one point he initiated a hunger strike that involved 120 inmates. Two days later, he was put in ad-seg for &quot;conspiracy to assault staff.&quot; The claim was based on confidential information that the person in charge of reviewing ad-seg assignments later found did not exist; it couldn&#x27;t be found anywhere in his file. He spent a year in isolation.&quot;<p>e: to state the point explicitly, few conclusions can be drawn from the official records because the standard of evidence is near zero, the guards can write anything they like, and they do.