UC Irvine

Supermax prisons are highly automated institutions, designed to maintain prisoners in long-term solitary confinement, with minimal sensory stimulation. Supermax prisoners spend 23 or more hours per day alone in their cells. Three or four times per week, a prison officer pushes a button in a central control tower, which opens one cell door at a time, allowing each prisoner, in turn, to shower, or go out alone to the caged yard area, usually a concrete area the size of a prison cell, with a roof partially exposed to the sky. Individual supermax cells usually have no windows exposed to natural light and only fluorescent lighting. Supermax prisoners have no physical contact with other human beings. Meals are pushed through small slots in the cell door. No provisions are made for educational or therapeutic programming; visits take place through Plexiglas shields, or by videoconference. During medical appointments, prisoners are locked into upright cages on wheels, often called therapeutic treatment modules.