HUNGER STRIKE FOR FOUR PRISONERS IN THIRD WEEK AT TAMMS, ILL.

Four prisoners who have been on a hunger strike at the Tamms Correctional Center for the past three weeks are protesting conditions at the super-maximum security facility and the dismissal of a prison chaplain who had criticized policies governing prisoners' religious rights.

The Illinois Department of Corrections has a written policy for handling hunger strikes. After 72 hours of declining regularly scheduled meals, the inmate is monitored by the medical staff. The four men have been placed in the same wing of the prison and are being checked each eight-hour shift by a nurse. At least once each eight-hour period, the prisoner is asked if he needs medical attention, says Brian Fairchild, a spokesman for the DOC in Springfield.

The medical staff would determine if and when it is necessary to force-feed the inmate, Fairchild said.

"Under no circumstance would we allow an inmate to starve himself to death. That is against the law."

The Tamms Correctional Center houses prisoners determined to be dangerous to guards or other inmates. Inmates are confined to solitary cells 23 hours of each day.

The hunger strike began May 1 when about half the center's 270 prisoners refused at least one meal. By the second week, the number participating in the strike was reduced to two dozen.

"Just last week we discovered some of the inmates were fishing candy bars around the corner to each other," Fairchild said. "... It's hard to say how long any of these individuals have gone without food."

He said he did not know the names of the prisoners and that no decision had been made to release the names.

He would not recount the prisoners' requests for changing the conditions of their confinement but said they were reviewed by prison authorities.

"There will be no response discussing those issues with them on the basis of their going on a hunger strike," Fairchild said.

He confirmed that the dismissal in December of prison chaplain, Hal Barker, is one of their complaints.

Barker has said the reasons given for dismissing him were insubordination, engaging in behavior likely to create unrest inside the prison, lying and using the prison copying machine without permission.

A former prison guard, Barker had written a memo to the inmates in which he complained that prisoners' rights to practice their religion freely were being restricted by prison policies, "unwritten rules" and unresponsive administrators.

Barker, a deacon at the Christian Church of Anna, has appealed his firing to the DOC. He could not be reached for comment.

One complaint the men on the hunger strike are known to have is with a meal consisting of ground meat, vegetables and fruit baked into a loaf.

Fairchild said the meal is served in response to an inmate's previous behavior at meal time.

"Many times it will be fed if they have engaged in behavior of throwing bodily fluids or feces on the staff," Fairchild said.

The loaf also can prevent the staff member from being burned by an inmate throwing hot food he has been served, Fairchild said.

"As soon as they stop hurling, flinging, drenching and throwing food they're being offered in the face of officers, they won't have to worry about getting the meal loaf," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.