The ruling comes as hundreds of prisoners continue a hunger strike to protest solitary confinement policies.
Mr. Clements, who was appointed executive director of the Corrections Department in 2011, had embarked on an ambitious program to change solitary confinement policies, reducing the number of inmates sent to isolation and putting programs in place to reduce recidivism once prisoners were released.
Harsh confinement policies at home might discourage the workers from doing so, he said.
A hunger strike over solitary confinement policies drew 30,000 participants at its peak, lasting nearly eight weeks before finally ending last week.
Though the current hunger strike is focused on the state's solitary-confinement policy, which allows inmates with gang associations to be held in isolation cells for decades, advocates and lawyers for the prisoners say that the widespread participation is a clear sign that the inmates are increasingly infuriated by the conditions.
Angola, built on the site of a former slave-breeding enterprise and cotton plantation, is famous for its racial strife, excessive use of solitary confinement, and policy of sending prisoners to labor en masse in fields; some have compared the harsh conditions there to chattel slavery.
A widespread inmate hunger strike in protest of California's policy of solitary confinement was approaching its second week on Sunday.
Nabil Aburdeineh, a top aide to Mr. Arafat, called Israel's policy of confinement "a big mistake," and insisted it had not harmed the Palestinian leader.
And while many see this as an improvement over Nauru's previously abhorrent policy of confinement, it also raises the question so what?
Shayana Kadidal, managing attorney of the Guantánamo project at the Center for Constitutional Rights, predicted there would now be a wave of claims from detainees relating to solitary confinement, force-feeding and policies that prevent the men being able to work with their lawyers on a regular basis.
Easter didn't offer a specific policy on solitary confinement, saying only that it's "not the way to rehabilitation" and efforts should be made to "cut back on" its use.
