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Illinois Mon Jun 08 2009
Tamms Year Ten: Stop Torture in Illinois
The Tamms Year Ten project is a campaign to end what they call torture at the Tamms Supermax facility in Southern Illinois. State Representative Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) has a petition going (and a bill in Springfield) to address the situation in Tamms. Recently activists literally took to the streets to raise awareness about the issue.
From the Tamms Year Ten website:
In 1998, the first prisoners were transferred from prisons across the state to Tamms CMAX, in Southern Illinois. This new "supermax" prison, designed to keep men in permanent solitary confinement, was intended for short-term incarceration. The IDOC called it a one-year "shock treatment." Now, ten years later, over one-third of the original prisoners have been there for a decade. They have lived in long-term isolation--no phone calls, no communal activity, no contact visits. They only leave the cell to exercise alone in a concrete box 2 to 5 times per week. They are fed through a slot in the door.
Here's some background from the Reader.
william / June 19, 2009 12:19 AM
It's the luck of the draw. In some prisons, inmates can throw lavish bar mitzvah parties on the taxpayer's dime. 6 of one, half dozen of the other- it all evens out.