DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO (AP) — An inmate in solitary confinement at a California jail was refusing to leave his cell. The jailers' usual response: Send an "extraction team" of corrections officers to burst into the cell and drag him out.
But not in Contra Costa County, one of three in the state using a kinder, gentler approach in response to inmate lawsuits, a policy change that experts say could be a national model for reducing the use of isolation cells.
So the inmate was asked: "What if we gave you a couple extra cookies and another sandwich? Would you move?" recalled Don Specter, the nonprofit Prison Law Office director who negotiated the new policies. "He said yes. ... They were like, 'Wow.'"
More than a quarter of U.S. states and numerous smaller jurisdiction
