TAMMS, ILL. — A few times a week, Joseph Dole stands in a back corner of the outdoor recreation area at Tamms Correctional Center, straining to catch a ray of sunlight.
"About four feet gets sun," said the rail-thin Dole, who is serving a life sentence for murder. "You can only get it if they call yard between 11 and 1. I just stand there. You feel warm, you feel refreshed."
Another murderer, Adolfo Rosario, said he hadn't shaken anyone's hand since his transfer to Tamms 11 years ago. "There is no contact at all, none," he said.
"The hardest part is the isolation," said Tyrone Dorn, serving time for carjacking. "It's like being buried alive."
The so-called supermax section of the prison was built in the 1990s to house Illinois' most dangerous inmates. Human-rights activists persistently criticize it. The long isolation of supermax prisons, opponents say, drives inmates to mental illness -- when the inmates aren't already ill.
Legislation introduced last week in Illinois would prohibit the seriously mentally ill from being sent to Tamms' supermax incarceration and would make it more difficult to keep inmates there indefinitely.
The state Department of Corrections opened up this world to a reporter and photographer for the first time in years, allowing them a glimpse at life for the 245 supermax inmates.
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Harsh conditions
For at least 23 hours a day, prisoners are in solitary confinement in 7-by-12-foot cells. Meals are shoved through a hole in cell doors.
For the rare visits from relatives and friends, inmates are strip-searched, chained to a concrete stool and separated from visitors by a thick glass wall.
There are no jobs and limited educational opportunities.
Inmates tell of using "fishing lines" fashioned from string in blankets to pass notes to other inmates and of developing a sign language to talk to each other.
Some observers liken Tamms' supermax to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Prison officials hail it as a success. Assaults against inmates and staff at other prisons have dropped, they say, because the most disruptive offenders are in Tamms.
Officials note that Tamms' supermax sector has been at just half its capacity during its 11 years, saying they've been selective about who is housed there.
Tamms -- which also includes a 200-bed minimum-security unit -- costs $27 million a year to run. That's about $60,000 for each inmate, almost triple the state average.
