Conditions at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, were so bad that when a fight between two inmates was broken up in 1971, it started a chain reaction that led to a riot. Critical errors in the guards' containment strategy enabled angry inmates to take control of most of the prison and hold prison guards as hostages. This led to a standoff, and the prisoners took the opportunity to organize, not only to negotiate with authorities, but to run the prison themselves. Their list of demands seemed to be fairly reasonable, and in fact most were reforms they had been requesting for some time and had been ignored.
The standoff lasted four days and ended with a violent raid that left 43 people dead. The incident shocked America, and the results were a little bit of prison reform and a lot of Americans who learned about prison conditions for the very first time. Weird History explains what happened at Attica.
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