With the hunger strike in its third week, California prison officials have finally agreed to meet with inmate advocates. State Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard, who hopes the protest will just burn itself out, is leaving this discussion to a different administrator. 

You've heard about the abysmal excessive solitary confinement that many inmates are facing, right? You've also probably heard about the federal government's war on whistleblowers. Where do these seemingly separate injustices cross paths? In Marion, Illinois.

How do the Trayvon Martins of our country get murdered? And how do the George Zimmermans get away with it? Here’s a hint: it’s the same way mass incarceration of African Americans continues undisturbed.

What does the hunger strike in two-thirds of California prisons indicate about prison conditions? Apparently nothing at all, if you’re Governor Jerry Brown.

In the War on Drugs, law enforcement has become the enemy of treatment, forcing drug users underground into high-risk situations. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Australia is a perfect example. In the mid-1980s Frank Hansen was a sergeant in the New South Wales drug squad.  Like in the U.S., drug users were always pursued with the full force of the law. Suddenly the squad was asked to make a fundamental shift in operations, as NSW introduced a needle and syringe exchange program. They cooperated, leading to Australia’s success fighting the HIV epidemic – the intersection of police and public health.

It’s like a prison horror-story competition, and Mississippi is in the running with the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF) near Meridian. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit today because of “barbaric” conditions. This isn’t the first time the ACLU has sued over conditions in a Mississippi prison – in 2002 it was inhumane treatment at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, and in 2010 it was abuses at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. EMCF is, however, an exceptionally egregious case. Gabriel B. Eber, staff counsel for the ACLU’s National Prison Project said ECMF “is the worst I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been in prisons all around the country.”

How are we making our country safer by throwing people like Jerry Duval in prison? In June, the 53-year-old Michigan resident will begin a 10-year sentence while the Department of Justice continues trying to seize his farm, since apparently prison just isn’t enough. The reason? Medical marijuana. Of course.

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) says federal aid to his home state after the tornado should be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. We'll see how well the ideological integrity holds up if offsets aren't quickly found, but nevertheless, the question of how to fund disaster relief is increasingly urgent. It arose late last year when Superstorm Sandy ravaged the East Coast. And though we cannot know whether man-made climate change was specifically responsible for either of those acts of nature, we do know federal spending to cope with extreme weather events has been rising. Indeed, from 2011 to 2013, the federal government has spent $136 billion on disaster relief.

One area of spending that Americans from left to right are willing to cut is incarceration and the War on Drugs.

Despite limited finances, Governor Tom Corbett is working on expanding prisons in Pennsylvania. Corbett’s administration plans a $400 million-plus project to build two new prisons in Montgomery County. Meanwhile, 23 Philadelphia public schools will be forced to shut their doors next year due to funding shortages. Are these really our priorities?

Just as a health crisis is emerging in California state prisons, the state’s governor is insisting that health in prisons has never been better.