Super Max Prison

A clean cell in hell awaits hijacker

The purpose of Supermax, the most secure jail in the world, is to turn the prisoner into a nonentity

Florence, Colorado - If the jury sentences 20th hijacker and unrepentant terrorist sup­porter Zacarias Moussaoui to death, he will go to hell. But if he is sentenced to live, he will come immediately to a place that many consider to be worse.

Supermax sits just outside this town. Its six big guard towers looming even before you get to the gate of the most secure jail in the world, the Administrative Maximum Facility, a place where prisoners who evade a quick death go to die, the only way they can escape.

Supermax is the major industry in Florence, a town of 3,653 cordial folk who often sip coffee while waiting for the breakfast of eggs and chicken fried steak at Big D's Cafe, and sell $2 pamphlets on the dinosaur tracks found up the road near the big town, Canon City.

The locals love their prison, and brag it exists here because of community action. They raised money to buy the site and lobby for the US government to build the Supermax here, in­cluding selling T-shirts with a map of the area; and they sold out. Supermax provides around 700 full-time jobs, and freelance or part-time income for around 1,000 others, by local estimates.

Florence is actually a booming little town. Canon City is the home of the Museum of Colorado Prisons - and Colorado has a rich and colourful history in that area.

The Super 8 Motel charges tourists $61 (2,300 baht) a night for a decent room. It lists the tourist attractions in the lobby: Florence Flower Shop, Florence Mortuary and Florence High School. This is not a town that gets a lot of tourists and it lives all right without them, thanks to the constant employment down the road.

Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, is a "guest" at Supermax. So is Theodore Kaczynski, the American terrorist Unabomber and Rarnzi You­sef, who wanted to kill the Pope in Manila after he tried but failed to bring down the World Trade Center in New York in 1993.

Also in here is the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Remember him? Well, that is the point. When the jury says "Guilty," and you pass through the gates of Supermax, no one re­members you any more.

There is a press room but no interview facilities. Moussaoui and his counterparts in Supermax get their last shot at fame the day the verdict is passed, and then the publicity lights go out, probably forever. Rahman's pro-terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart was convicted of terrorist conspiracy for carrying notes to him in Supermax.

Supermax has yielded to one prisoner. The American terrorist Timothy McVeigh – Moussaoui called him "the greatest Ameri­can" – got out of the world's most secure prison. He was placed in a cell for a short time, a very short time at Terre Haute prison in Indiana, and then strapped to a table and put to death with drug injections.

McVeigh, executed in 2001, was the first prisoner sentenced to death by a US federal court in 38 years.

This week, Amnesty International issued its annual condemnation of US executions, but all 60 last year came from trials in state courts, usually for murder.

US federal courts try crimes committed against the entire country - treason, murder of federal officials, kidnapping and bank robberies where the criminals cross state lines. Life sentences are far more common than death, even when murders are involved.

Apart from McVeigh, every other of the almost 400 prisoners in Florence has taken a one-way trip: McVeigh helper Terry Nichols; Mafia boss John Gotti; the Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard; the Navy, CIA and FBI turncoats John Walker, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen; Charles Har­relson, father of actor Woody and the murderer of a judge.

And don't expect ever to hear of these people again. When Supermax guards tell you that prisoners are in isolation, that is exactly what they mean. "Not much I can tell ya, “says a guard over a brew on Main Street in Florence, "except when they come to us, they just kind of disappear from the rest of the world. That's the way it's designed”

The cells in Supermax are scrupulously clean. Each has a bed, a toilet, a table, a shelf, a sink, hot water. Any advert writer could make it sound like the $61 Super 8 Motel room where reporters stay. Maybe even better, be­cause at Supermax, no one can break into your room and steal your possessions. It's just that you don't have possessions at Supermax, and the rooms are just a tad claustrophobic at 12 by 7 feet - 3.65 by 2.13 metres. Contact with other prisoners isn't just banned; it is impossible because of the solid steel and cement walls, and the door with one small slit, angled up. It's just that guests at the Supermax stay in their rooms for 23 hours a day, and cable-TV is not part of the package.

If Moussaoui is sentenced to life rather than death, he can expect amenities. The food will be nutritious, the Koran will be high quality, and other religious items such as a prayer mat and hat and clean-up towel all will be provided.

There is that daily hour outside the sound­proofed, absolutely sterile cell, of course, as­suming the prisoner has not lost his only daily privilege through misbehaviour. Three guards carrying batons with metal tips come for the prisoner, handcuff him and shackle his legs. He gets to shuffle alone around an exercise yard, built so the prisoner cannot see the sky.

The sky, of course, is a sign of freedom, and in Supermax Florence, freedom's just another word for nothing. Or perhaps for death.

Guards in a central location can control the movements of prisoners in the several cell blocks so the men never see another human other than their minders.

When the Florence prison opened, its project manager Russ Martin told the press, “These guys will never be out of their cells, much less in the yard or anywhere around here,” in sur­rounding Colorado. With special permission, or in an emergency, prisoners also are allowed to go to the prison medical unit, get a haircut or use a basic but functioning law library that exists on each cell block.

The purpose of Supermax, Florence, however, is to turn the prisoner into a nonentity. There have already been a couple of unsuccessful lawsuits that claimed incarceration in Supermax was a violation of human rights - cruel and unusual punishment, as the US constitution puts it. Aldrich Ames, arguably the most no­torious spy in American history, said the sterile, scrupulous daily routine at Supermax was driving him insane.

An earlier super-maximum prison called "Marion is a violent attack on human rights", says a prisoner-friendly essay at the web site of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown. "Florence is even worse - an outrage! It's designed to destroy." ALAN DAWSON

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Answer the following:
A. Is staying in a Supermax prison less humane then receiving the death penalty.

B. Which of the following words listed below would you use to help describe the article (you may use wikipedia to help you out).
Areas of Knowledge: Ethics
1. Altruism

2. Cultural imperialism

3. Duty ethics

4. Egoism

5. Golden rule

6. Moral absolutism

7. Moral principle

8. Moral relativism

9. Veil of ignorance

10. Self-interest theory

11. Special pleading

12. Utilitarianism

13. Value-judgment