By Associated Press
Springfield, IL – Illinois' new prisons chief says he understands the need for the state's only Supermax prison, but he insists it's time for reforms at the debated lockup in southern Illinois.
The 11-year-old Tamms Correctional Center is billed by its backers as the prison for the ``worst of the worst,'' but it's been criticized by some lawmakers and human-rights groups as abusive. Opponents say some inmates have been held in solitary confinement for more than 10 years, and that mentally ill inmates are wrongly sent there.
Corrections director Mike Randle now recommends that inmates have better mental health screening before and after being sent to the prison to assess whether the stay there is harming them. Randle says he also wants each Tamms inmate to have transfer review hearings.
