Credit to Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle – October 27, 2016 – California has greatly reduced solitary confinement in its prisons and has nearly eliminated its long-term use under a year-old legal settlement, lawyers for the prisoners reported Monday. The state had 9,870 prisoners in isolation cells in December 2012, shortly after inmates filed a class-action lawsuit against the prison system’s use of solitary confinement. That total was down to 3,471 as of August 2016, a 65 percent reduction, said the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the inmates. The center also reported a 97 percent reduction in the number of inmates kept in solitary confinement for 10 years or more: Out of 1,557 held in long-term isolation before the settlement, prison officials have transferred at least 1,512 to general prison housing and recommended moving 20 more.