Pennsylvania agrees to upgrade inmates’ death row conditions

Pennsylvania’s prison agency agreed to improve death row conditions under a settlement announced Monday of a federal lawsuit that called the inmates’ living standards degrading and inhumane. Lawyers for the inmates who sued said the agreement provides people on death row with at least 42½ hours a week out of their cell, daily access to phones and contact visits with their families, lawyers and religious advisers. Death row inmates who have been psychologically damaged by long periods in solitary confinement will be evaluated and offered help adapting to a general population setting.