U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law looks into problems of mental illness in U.S. prisons

From The News-Democrat in Belleville, Ill.:

The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law will begin its first-ever inquiry into a domestic human rights issue Sept. 15 with a hearing on mental illness in U.S. prisons, prompted in part by a News-Democrat series on the supermax Tamms Correctional Center.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, will serve as chairman of the committee. He read the series "Trapped in Tamms," which will play a prominent role in this morning's hearing, according to a Durbin aide.

Among witnesses scheduled to testify are Illinois Department of Corrections Director Michael Randle and 2nd District Appellate Court Judge Kathryn Zenoff.

The newspaper series, which ran Aug. 2 and 3, reported that 54 of the prison's approximately 250 inmates had been held for more than 10 years, including 39 who have been held since the lockup opened in 1998. It is located near the Illinois-Kentucky border.

The articles included evidence of mental illness exhibited over periods of years by inmates, including self-mutilation and feces-smearing.

It also challenged the Department of Correction's assertion that the prison holds the "worst of the worst."

While about a dozen inmates have been convicted of killing prison staff and other inmates, more than half of Tamms' 247 inmates have not been convicted of crimes since entering the prison system. And 55 of the 109 inmates who have been convicted since entering the system committed acts that could be attributed to mental illness and that did not result in serious injury, such as throwing bodily wastes or struggling with guards.

The Chicago-based Tamms Year Ten Committee, activists pushing for reforms at the prison, called for an end to long-term solitary confinement unless a prisoner is shown to be a clear and present danger to other prisoners or staff. The committee also supports measures to provide programs and services to inmates, and seeks the appointment of commissioners to oversee operation of the prison under the guidance of Mental Health Division of the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Earlier this month, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also cited the "Trapped In Tamms" series when they urged Gov. Pat Quinn to prohibit transferring seriously mentally ill prisoners to the prison, which holds all inmates in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

Last week, Randle submitted recommendations regarding Tamms to Quinn, but those recommendations have not been made public.

The Senate subcommittee previously supported a bill that prohibited crimes against humanity -- any widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population that involves murder, enslavement, torture, rape, arbitrary detention, extermination, hostage taking or ethnic cleansing.