Halt funding or fix Tamms prison

At Tamms supermax prison at the southern tip of Illinois, over 250 men are being held in permanent solitary confinement, year after year, with no communal activity or human contact of any kind. The Department of Corrections has refused to consider policies or due process safeguards. This form of extreme punishment is beyond the bounds of basic human decency.

We ask that you support any successor to HB 2633 to bring this prison back in line with its original legislative intent. This legislation will prohibit seriously mentally ill prisoners from supermax incarceration, establish clear procedures for how men are transferred to and from the supermax, and limit terms of solitary confinement to one-year, unless doing so would pose a risk to guards or other inmates. Illinois needs a clear, objective set of guidelines governing how prisoners are sent to Tamms and how they get out.

Tamms is designed for short term incarceration. The criteria for placement at Tamms are currently so vague that every prisoner in the IDOC is eligible. Decisions to send men to Tamms are secret and not open to review. Men are not given placement forms and many do not know why they are there. In a typical day at Tamm's inmates stay in their cell 23 hours per day. Meals are served through a "chuck hole," or feeding slot in the perforated steel door.

Yard privileges are allowed for some inmates for an hour per day. Tamm's inmates cannot make or receive telephone calls except from their attorney.

Identical treatment at Guantanamo Bay has been judged by Attorney General Eric Holder to be too isolating for prisoner safety. All prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are now provided social interaction and phone calls, in compliance with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Convention.

Please reform Tamms Supermax or cut the funding. There should be no more tax money for torture at Tamms.

Joseph M. Jason

Buffalo Grove

Board member, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Barrington Area