Posted on 05/26/2008 11:09:37 PM PDT by Graybeard58
TAMMS | Lawmakers: Don't keep inmates there more than a year
Reginald "Akkeem" Berry said he wasted away during eight years in Tamms Correctional Center at the southern tip of Illinois.
Berry, a former Four Corner Hustler imprisoned for killing a gang rival over turf, said he lost 75 pounds from his muscular frame while in the state's only "supermax" facility, where he was sent after a series of disciplinary problems in other prisons.
He was paroled in 2006.
"Tamms starved me," Berry, 45, said during a news conference Sunday to promote state legislation to make the 10-year-old prison more humane.
Representatives Julie Hamos (D-Evanston), Karen Yarbrough (D-Broadview), Eddie Washington (D-Waukegan) and others have introduced a bill that would limit inmates' stays in Tamms to one year with narrow exceptions, bar the state from transferring seriously mentally ill prisoners there, and require a review every three months to see whether a prisoner should remain in Tamms.
Tamms inmates are held in solitary confinement for at least 23 hours a day, are fed through holes in cell doors, can't make phone calls, are allowed only three visits a year and are denied communal activity including religious services, Hamos said. She said the prison was not designed for prolonged confinement of inmates -- yet a third have been there for about a decade.
If the proposed Tamms legislation fails to pass during the fall veto session, Hamos said she might work to decommission it as a "supermax" facility.
Derek Schnapp, a Department of Corrections spokesman, said state officials will study the proposed legislation, but added, "Our offenders at Tamms earn their way there. They are assaultive on staff or other inmates and don't belong in the general population."
if I ever had to go to prison, I’d want to be in solitary.
“Tamms inmates are held in solitary confinement for at least 23 hours a day, are fed through holes in cell doors, can’t make phone calls, are allowed only three visits a year and are denied communal activity including religious services”
IMHO, all prisons should be this way. It is prison, after all.
Notice that all three of these politicians that want to coddle gangbangers and other dangerous criminals are democrats?
I did a certain amount of time in solitary while in a US Navy brig. (It’s a long story.) It’s not that bad. I read the Bible all the way through during my stay.
I have the ability to sleep at will, which helps.
It's bullshit that we pay upwards of $65,000 pr. prisoner per year to keep these ninny whits in prisons, catering to their every want and need.
Bring back the "Chain Gang". At least we'd be getting something back from all our wasted tax money keeping these dopes alive.
Do you get books to read while in solitary? If so, it sounds much better than other prisons where you have to mingle with the barbarians.
get the word “solitary”?
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Malnourished and losing 75lbs means he must have died.
Oh wait....
He wasn't malnourished was he? He was underfed, the poor little fat pig.
In a lot of those prisons, since you’re there for disciplinary reasons, you do not get to have any books, magazines, puzzles, writing materials, radio or tv, or anything to help pass the time. Basically, you just have to look at the 4 walls. You don’t see anyone or speak to anyone for 23 hours a day.
A friend was sent to “the hole” in a county jail, and they took everything from her, even her bible and her AA book. She wasn’t allowed anything in there for the 2 weeks she was there. She never went back to the hole after that.
Not a good thing.
While I don’t believe in coddling prisoners, this sort of forced isolation has been proven to induce serious mental illness after extended periods of time.
Mark
Do the crime, do the time.
Depends on why you’re there, and the jail. See my #12 post.
Mark
I confess to ignorance of all things prisony. I thought solitary meant no other people - I suppose your comment implies no books either.
Mark, since she “never went back to the hole after that”, how can that NOT be a “good thing”? Seems to me it served the purpose. Jest wondering.
I’ve got to do a little research but if I remember the story correctly Mr. Berry lost 75+ pounds from an original weight that was 300+ pounds. You notice that particular fact is missing from the Chicago Sun Times story.
Thanks for the info.
Why am I not surprised?
Thank you. You verified my thoughts in post #11. :-)
“Is this prison too tough?”
Nope.
The democrats cannot afford to lose any votes.
If you prosecute crime how will the dems win elections?
It’s not hard enough. They should be fed raw grains and water, coupled with a vitamin pill. Let them eat no more than 2000 calories a day.
Watch their fat melt off and their muscles trim down. And watch the savings in dollars and health care costs.
No,my comment implied “solitary” as in no other prison inmates to interact with.
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I've heard nowhere is where it's at. Great post, I enjoyed it immensely. And enjoy your retreat ;)
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Too tough? I believe not. I happen to believe that prisoners in a jail have to support themselves and cover all of the costs of being in jail. I say in areas where it is possible, that the prisoners raise crops to feed themselves and such. In colder areas, there is always the possibility of some sort of manufacturing an item. If the prisoner does not cover the cost of daily upkeep they do not eat. I am only talking about covering the cost of food with the possibility of covering the actual cost of keeping them in prison. If the people in prison are as I consider, dregs on society, then they should cover the costs of theirs incarceration as part of their punishment. Some prisoners have it a lot easier than I do in life as in luxuries.
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Republicans are a very rare breed in the state of Illinois.
Ain't that the truth.
Have them harvest crops in the field instead of allowing more and more illegal aliens to do the task.
In Franco's Spain, prisoners weren't even given the vitamin pill.
If they got more than grains and water, it was because they hand-made items that were sold; otherwise, their families brought them additional food. The burden to a prisoner's family surely assisted the recidivism rate.
Funny how these buttwipes can’t stand being with themselves. They say it drives them crazy and is brutal.
Duh.
Maybe they’d like to do solitary in North Vietnam or a hundred other places in the world? No, I suppose not.
normally paperback or law books but like they said you earn your way to solitary by not cooperating or assaulting others
We both know that the general knowledge of the prison system from the posters, both pro and con (not a pun, honest!), would fill at least half a thimble.
He always laughed at inappropriate times.
Jail ain’t supposed to be fun.
For the pure experience, there can be no internet.
Hope it happens for you. Soon.
...should have been executed...
The mailing address for the prison is 200 Supermax Rd, Tamms, Ill. I kind of like that. Nothing like rubbing it in when you get a letter.
That would actually be more expensive since work details, whether inside or outside the prison, require more supervision than keeping them locked up for 23 hours a day. The prisoners in the maximum security unit as so dangerous that moving one prisoner from point A to point B required a 2:1 or 3:1 guard to prisoner ration. As it is the prison is under-staffed.
There is an erroneous impression, imo propagated by sensationist tv shows, that everyone behind bars is a violent murderer. Nothing could be further from the truth.
He was paroled in 2006.
Sounds like Bible College in the 1960s. Or the Trois Rivieres Greyhound Station after 10:00 p.m.
One advantage of a classical education is the amount of literature one ends up committing to memory. Once I had to spend the night on a snowed-in Greyhound bus between Corfu NY and Buffalo. I passed the time reciting (to myself) poetry and Shakespearean soliloquies.
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