Lockdown leads 17 inmates to protest with hunger strike

More than a dozen prisoners at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville are on hunger strike in response to a lockdown for disciplinary violations including a rash of feces-throwing incidents, according to Texas prison officials.

Seventeen of the 156 inmates on lockdown started refusing food on Friday and are being regularly checked by medical staff, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

News of the hunger strike comes less than a day after a seven-hour jailhouse brawl in South Carolina that killed seven and became the worst prison riot in a quarter-century, according to the Associated Press.

In Texas, the latest disciplinary lockdown began March 23 in response to an uptick in infractions, including verbal abusiveness toward correctional officers and “chunking,” or throwing bodily fluids.

One inmate tossed feces at a guard after the lockdown, and a number of prisoners tossed feces wrapped in newspaper out into common areas while the unit was on medical restriction and there were no janitors.

The alleged bad behavior comes less than a week after an inmate at the state’s Telford Unit was hit with a life sentence in response to a chunking incident in which a female guard was drenched with a spray of liquid feces. The inmate received the life sentence based on three previous felony convictions, according to the Texarkana Gazette.

“The offenders say they are protesting a lockdown of their housing area for disciplinary reasons,” said TDCJ spokesman Jeremy Desel.

The prisoners locked down at the 2,625-inmate Wynne Unit are all G4 classification, which can often mean they’ve had a history of disciplinary violations.

In late December, a group of about 45 inmates at the Allred Unit in North Texas went on hunger strike, citing complaints over recreational time and food portions and temperature. The action ended in early January, though it wasn’t clear if anything was done to address their complaints.