Wandtv.com, NewsCenter17, StormCenter17, Central Illinois News-Report: Tamms inmates each cost $92,000 per year
Associated Press - December 31, 2009 12:54 PM ET
TAMMS, Ill. (AP) - A newspaper says housing each of the more than 200 inmates at Illinois' only supermax prison is costing taxpayers two to three times what it would at any of the state's other three maximum-security lockups.
The state says it's per-year cost to run the Tamms Correctional Center in southern Illinois amounts to about $64,000 per prisoner.
But the Belleville News-Democrat reports that cost likely is much higher. That's because 155 inmates at a minimum-security camp operated on the same grounds are included in the figures.
The combined annual cost for the supermax and the camp is nearly $28 million, pushing the per-inmate cost at Tamms to about $92,000.
Human rights advocates have complained prisoners are kept at Tamms indefinitely, often in isolation and to the detriment to their mental health.
Information from: Belleville News-Democrat, http://www.bnd.com
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