Supermax lockups adjust to decreasing demand

SOURCE:  http://realcostofprisons.org/

Supermax
by JULIE CARR SMYTH AP Statehouse Correspondent
Published on Saturday Apr 05, 2008

Kunta Kenyatta struggles to describe the 33 months he spent in the tight four walls of a super-maximum security cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary.
"It's extreme isolation, sensory deprivation. It's hard to explain really," said Kenyatta, 39, out since 2001.
Supermax prisons _ where inmates spend roughly 23 hours a day locked in soundproofed cells _ were trendy when Ohio
cut the ribbon on its angular, steel-bedecked penitentiary April 9, 1998.

A decade later, the winds favoring ultrasecure incarceration have shifted...MORE