Update: On December 19, an Alexander County judge lifted the
injunction blocking the closure of Tamms and six other state facilities.
Illinois prison officials began transferring inmates out of the
facilities following this move, which was taken on an earlier order from
the Illinois Supreme Court. The facilities are scheduled to close by
January 4. The judge did not dismiss AFSCME Local Council 31's underlying lawsuit, however, and the union said in a statement
on the closings that “AFSCME will be able to continue to seek a legal
remedy that addresses the dangerous conditions that the closures will
cause throughout the prison system.”
“I am a mom,” read dozens of signs lofted by protesters outside
Illinois’ Tamms Correctional Center last spring. Many of the
demonstrators were family members of the prison’s 100-plus inmates who
are held in 23-hour-a-day isolation. But the slogan—an allusion to
AFSCME’s famous 1968 “I am a man” campaign
for striking sanitation workers in Memphis—was also seeking to shame
the union that once marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr., for its
current fight to keep the supermax prison open.
In June 2012, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced that Tamms and five other state correctional facilities would be shuttered
that August to help fill the state’s $43.8 billion budget deficit. But
all have remained open thanks to a lawsuit filed by AFSCME Local Council
31, which represents guards and other workers at the prison. A bruising
fight has followed between a union trying to preserve its members’ jobs
and activists insisting that the labor movement must draw the line at
supporting the prison industry’s cruelest facilities.
Read on...
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Showing posts with label Illinois. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Illinois. Show all posts
Illinois’ Injustice System
Budget cuts are hard on ex-cons trying to make good.
From where he stands today, Kerry Owens is optimistic. He was released from an Illinois prison in November, after serving a year for retail theft. Owens, 41, has been in and out of the criminal justice system before, but his most recent sentence, for his first felony conviction, has changed his life forever.
From where he stands today, Kerry Owens is optimistic. He was released from an Illinois prison in November, after serving a year for retail theft. Owens, 41, has been in and out of the criminal justice system before, but his most recent sentence, for his first felony conviction, has changed his life forever.
He resolved to live differently by volunteering, kicking the addiction that led him to steal $300 worth of merchandise, and enrolling at a local community college. But as a convicted felon, it is now harder than ever to get a job, find an apartment and receive social services.
Owens previously worked as a custodian, and while in prison he earned a certificate for commercial custodian services. But persistent high unemployment and his felony record have left him looking for work. “There’s nothing out there,” he says. “They’re certifying us for jobs that don’t exist.”
Wither the Death Penalty! First in 2011 — Illinois. Is Maryland Next?
One more down, fewer to go! By taking the historic step of signing into law last week a repeal of the death penalty in Illinois, Gov. Patrick Quinn lent further momentum to efforts in other states across the country to abolish state-sanctioned killings.
Long plagued with flaws including the sentencing to death of 20 people who were later freed after being found to be innocent, racial bias, rampant legal errors and law enforcement, attorney and court misconduct and incompetence that besieged the capital prosecution system, Illinois' death penalty system had to go.
This latest addition to the abolition collective of states — joining most recent inductees, New Mexico in 2009 and New Jersey in 2007 — brings the total number of states who refuse to kill their own citizens to 16. (Note: the efforts to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico and West Virginia have failed so far this year.)
Currently, strong abolition campaigns in Connecticut, Maryland and Montana may have further positive results for all people who care about justice.
Illinois and Capital Punishment
Eleven years after gross injustice compelled a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois, the State Legislature has concluded that the only way to guard against execution of the innocent is to outlaw the death penalty. Gov. Pat Quinn, who has sent mixed signals in the past, should quickly sign the legislation into law.
Former Gov. George Ryan declared the moratorium in 2000 in the face of a running scandal of faulty trials that cost innocent inmates their lives. Three years later, Mr. Ryan stunned the nation by commuting 167 death row felons to life terms and calling for a hard look at the business of state-sanctioned death. (Mr. Ryan subsequently went to prison for statehouse corruption, but the flaws of capital punishment remained clear, as dramatically confirmed now by the Legislature.)
Former Gov. George Ryan declared the moratorium in 2000 in the face of a running scandal of faulty trials that cost innocent inmates their lives. Three years later, Mr. Ryan stunned the nation by commuting 167 death row felons to life terms and calling for a hard look at the business of state-sanctioned death. (Mr. Ryan subsequently went to prison for statehouse corruption, but the flaws of capital punishment remained clear, as dramatically confirmed now by the Legislature.)
Under prodding from outside investigators, the state has had to free 20 inmates from death row since 1987. It has also enacted some commendable reforms. These included mandatory taping of interviews with homicide suspects — a measure that followed tales of torture in notorious Chicago precinct houses.
This is a New York Times editorial. Tom
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