After a lawsuit, the State of California has agreed to end its practice of imposing blanket "lockdowns" on prison inmates according to their race. The year is 2014.

Before you say "Prisons are cauldrons of racial violence and gangs that require racial segregation in order to keep the peace," consider what we are talking about here: prisons locking every inmate of a certain race in their cells for weeks or months on end, simply because of their race. Not just locking down members of a certain gang. Not just locking down inmates who have specifically violated prison rules. Locking down all inmates of a certain race. Just because it is convenient. The LA Times notes that the lawsuit in question was spurred by an incident in 2006 when, after a small group of prisoners attacked guards, one California state prison "confined African Americans in one wing of the prison to their cells, and kept them there for 14 months."

They did not just lock down the guilty parties. They locked down all the black guys. For 14 months. And in case that sounds like an isolated incident: "Prison lawyers cited as many as 160 race-based lockdowns lasting six weeks or longer in a given year in California."

The State of California has agreed to end this practice, in the year 2014.

[Photo: AP]