Previously: Cook County Schools, Cook County Jails. B0124. Until last year, Illinois operated a $20-million-a-year super maximum security prison (“Supermax”) in the remote southern city of Tamms. There were only two hundred inmates, making it one of the most expensive prisons per capita of any in the country. It was also among the few prisons to practice complete, utter social isolation. Inmates were kept in miniscule chambers with thick metal doors and plexiglass windows…
In the summer of 2011, I had two jobs. One was in the Cook County Jail’s drug treatment facility, Division VI; the other was at a summer school on the South Side for Chicago public schools. The similarities were chilling. The inmates of both places were delivered the same bland, partially frozen food: Bologna in tiny tortillas, waxy apples, and milk that had solidified. Go-gurt, for some reason.
