Issue date: 3/6/08 Section: The Weekly

Ten years ago the first group of inmates deemed the worst-of-the-worst were transferred from Illinois prisons to the Tamms Closed Maximum Security facility. At Tamms, they spend 23 hours a day in an 8ft-by-12ft concrete cell: alone to eat, sleep, urinate, defecate, and wonder how long they would stay sane. The 24th hour is for isolated exercise in a small pen with a wire mesh ceiling and no equipment - worth it if only to catch a glimpse of the sun. There is no human contact, except the occasional knock of a guard's hand connecting shackles. There are no phone calls. Reading material is severely restricted, and visits (if approved) are extremely rare, involving no contact. If they do happen, visitations are recorded, behind a physical barrier, and through voice-activated speakers.

This March marks the 10th anniversary of the prison's opening. For the Tamms Year Ten Committee, this inhumane treatment has gone on 10 years too long.

The Tamms Year Ten Campaign is a series of educational, artistic and prisoner support events to create awareness of the horrifying conditions at Tamms. Letter-writing sessions, a blues and jazz benefit concert and film screenings are some of the events being held in Chicago in March and April.

"We've created this series of events around the 10th anniversary, because it's time the public knew what's going on in Tamms," says Laurie Jo Reynolds of the Year Ten Campaign. "We wanted to mark the anniversary publicly so that people can question whether it is acceptable or not." And they're confident the public will agree it's not.

Tamms is located 360 miles south of Chicago, making it hard to get to and easy to ignore. The conditions in the prison are tantamount to torture, according to both the Geneva Convention and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, say the campaign's organizers. Solitary confinement exceeding four weeks requires special clearance at Guantanamo Bay. But Tamms' prisoners watch weeks turn into months and months turn into years with no idea when their isolation will end.

Continued...

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