Fascinated by prison movies?
It’s a lot worse than you’ve seen on TV.
The US is known for having the largest prison system in the world.
The inmate population has skyrocketed over the last few decades.
With violent offenders living in a closed space, it’s a huge challenge to make prison
safe.
This is why supermax prisons now exist, where the most dangerous criminals are kept in solitary
confinement.
But what is it like inside one of these supermax prisons?
With supermax, inmates live with minimal human contact.
They have no religious or educational programs to keep themselves occupied.
In today’s video, we’re going to discuss the dangerous US Supermax prisons of the 1990s.
Why is Alcatraz Federal Prison so popular?
What was life like at Tamms Correctional Center?
We’ll talk about all of these AND more…
Let’s begin the discussion by learning more about Supermax prisons.
Supermax prisons have been a mainstay in the United States for many decades.
They have a reputation for being the toughest prisons in the country.
They’re also known to house prisoners in cruel conditions, with virtually no outside
contact.
What’s the difference between a regular prison and a supermax?
For one, the prisoners rarely get any free time.
In many of these prisons, the prisoners are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day
and are allowed to get out for an hour.
Supermax prisons were formed to house the worst of the worst prisoners.
They were meant to be the last option for offenders who were a threat to people at their
previous prisons.
Typically, prisoners in supermax are serving life sentences.
But that’s not always the case.
In the 1990s, supermax prisons were being operated in around 34 US states.
Each prison had a capacity of about 20,000 beds.
It’s not always possible to send the worst offenders to fill these supermax prisons.
Instead, state correctional facilities send problematic prisoners when their prisons are
overflowing.
This means not all the prisoners in a supermax prison deserve to be there.
A car thief that was only 16 years old was once sent to Wisconsin’s supermax prison.
Another prisoner named David Tracy, who was only 19, was sent to the Virginia supermax
on a drug trafficking charge.
Unable to bear the conditions, he hanged himself.
The isolation in supermax prisons can drive prisoners crazy.
This environment is no place for rehabilitation, which is what prisons are meant to do.
People who’ve been released from supermax prisons have more often than not returned
to crime.
So what are the worst supermax prisons in the United States?
The reality about Alcatraz Federal Prison.
While Alcatraz Federal Prison was closed in 1963, it’s considered to be the original
supermax prison.
It gained a reputation as the toughest prison in all of the United States, and was seen
as one of the worst prisons in the world.
Many inmates reported abuse at Alcatraz.
Ed Wutke became the first Alcatraz prisoner to commit suicide.
Another prisoner named Rufe Persful chopped off his own fingers with an ax in order to
get special treatment.
Alcatraz was so bad, it was once described as a garbage can where all other prisons threw
their rotten apples.
Even the US Attorney General in 1939 said the entire prison complex made prisoners more
sinister rather than rehabilitate them.
Some of the most dangerous criminals were sent to Alcatraz, which did not help improve
its reputation.
Robert Stroud was one of the infamous prisoners.
He had been in different prisons since he was 19 years old.
He spent 17 of his 54 years locked up at Alcatraz.
The prison’s reputation got even worse when its living conditions were brought to light
during a trial.
Henri Young was on trial in 1941 for killing fellow inmate Rufus McCain.
But his lawyers argued Young was the subject of cruel punishment by the guards at Alcatraz.
This drove him to murder.
Life at Tamms Correctional Center wasn’t much better.
Located in Tamms, Illinois, this prison originally opened as a minimum-security facility in 1995.
In 1998, another section was opened, which would serve as a supermax facility housing
the worst offenders.
It’s estimated that it cost around $73 million to build the entire complex.
One of the functions of Tamms was to house prisoners who were serving a disciplinary
sentence for offenses committed in other prisons.
It was essentially a prison’s prison.
Life in the Tamms facility was nothing to brag about.
Prisoners were put in 10 x 12 foot concrete cells.
The cells had steel doors, meaning prisoners didn’t even have the luxury of bars.
Each cell did have a small window, which was high and narrow.
This allowed a bit of light from the outside.
Even the bed was made of concrete, with a thin plastic foam mattress put over it.
Food was given through a small opening at the bottom of the steel door.
The prisoners are barely allowed contact with the outside world, with luxuries like showering
restricted to once a week.
Prisoners were in solitary confinement for most of their sentence.
Since the minimum term at Tamms was one year, most prisoners felt the psychological impact
of staying in solitary for so long.
There’s also no work to do at Tamms, so prisoners have no activity to keep them occupied.
Any misbehavior by the prisoners is immediately met with punishment.
On top of that, the food at the prison is tasteless.
Even the hardest of prisoners couldn’t deal with this.
Moving on, let’s talk about the horrors at Pelican Bay.
Pelican Bay State Prison opened in 1989 in Crescent City, California.
It’s a supermax facility that covers 275 acres.
One half of the prison is all maximum security prisoners, with each cell containing two inmates.
When the prison first opened, guards were eager to establish their dominance.
They created a violent culture through beating prisoners regularly, and leaving them tied
up and naked.
The guards even organized gladiator-style fights between members of enemy gangs and
then shot at them when they started fighting.
The horrors at Pelican Bay came to light after the media reported on a prisoner named Vaughn
Dortch.
Vaughn’s mental health had greatly deteriorated since he was moved to Pelican Bay.
In April 1992, he spread feces all over himself.
The guards took him to get cleaned up.
When they got Vaughn out of sight, they handcuffed him and dunked him in very hot water.
Vaughn ended up suffering second and third-degree burns.
Lawsuits were filed against the prison and judges made sure changes were made.
Use of excessive force decreased at Pelican, with the practice of housing mentally ill
patients also being revisited.
In 2012, another lawsuit against the California prison system was based on the unlimited isolation
policy practiced at Pelican.
Prisoners were no longer put in isolation units indefinitely.
The maximum limit was five years– still an insanely long time to be alone in one place.
Isolation was now only used if the prisoners committed new crimes while they were at Pelican.
Last on our list is the Red Onion State Prison.
Red Onion opened in 1998 in Virginia.
It cost around $70 million to build and was one of the six prisons built in the state
between 1995 and 2000.
It was the model for another supermax facility in Virginia - the Wallen Ridge State Prison.
More than half of the prisoners at Red Onion have prison sentences close to two decades.
Over 10% of the inmates at this supermax facility have life sentences.
Around 65% of the prisoners at Red Onion remain in solitary confinement.
They’re forced to stay in their cells for more than 20 hours a day.
The confinement time can range from two weeks to 14 years.
The solitary confinement rate at Red Onion is one of the highest in the state of Virginia.
More than 150 prisoners who’ve been kept in solitary confinement have later been diagnosed
with mental illness.
Guards also use electroshock weapons on prisoners after holding them back with cruel five-point
restraints.
As Morgan Freeman said in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, “Prison is no fairy-tale
world.”
Dare to learn more?
Let’s keep your curiosity going with a couple more videos, shall we?
Here’s what you need to know…
Watch the spine chilling story of the Woman Who Spent 24 Years In Her Father’s Prison.
You can also check out our video on 7 Notorious Nazis Who Escaped But Were HUNTED And Tried.
Go ahead, click one.
Or better yet, watch both, and learn more about crazy prisoner stories.
Did you know about these supermax prisons before watching this video?
Let us know in the comments below!