Inside Coalinga: California’s Worst Shadow Prison
The American criminal justice system operates upon a very simple principle: Any person who commits a crime is to serve a sentence, and once they serve that sentence, they have paid their dues to society. However, our criminal justice system does not always adhere to this philosophy. The United States has a system of involuntary civil confinement facilities, a detestable system designed to incarcerate people even after they have served their prison sentences, and Coalinga State Hospital is one of the biggest perpetrators of this atrocity. Coalinga is one of the country’s largest shadow prisons, housing an appalling…