ACTION ALERT: TELL GOVERNOR QUINN JUST DO IT! @ Tamms Year Ten
Posted on June 19, 2012
From Tamms Year Ten:
GOVERNOR QUINN IS ANNOUNCING HIS DECISION ON TAMMS VERY SOON
PLEASE TAKE TWO MINUTES TODAY AND TELL HIM TO DO THE RIGHT THING
For everyone who worked on this arduous task I want to say thank you, please continue in your efforts to help. I have a son in Tamms, he has been there for twelve years, he has not been transferred out. We need your help to close Tamms. We have come so close, let us all fight until the bitter end. Too much time has been put into this fight to allow this battle to be lost. This hidden monster has been brought to the attention of the public. With all my heart I thank you all for all you have done.
–Brenda Smith, son in Tamms for 12 years
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1 – CALL GOVERNOR QUINN TODAY
Gov. Quinn, thank you for your principled and smart plan to close Tamms supermax. Stick to it.
Do NOT expand Tamms into a new medium-security prison. CLOSE TAMMS OUTRIGHT!
• We do not need or want a new prison.
• It is immoral to support prison expansion just to create jobs.
• Tamms was designed for a single-purpose, isolation. It would take millions and millions to rebuild it.
• Illinois must not build a new prison while slashing programs to prevent incarceration and lower recidivism.
• Spend that 26 million dollars on underfunded mental health treatment in and out of the prisons.
Please let us know that you called. We are keeping track so that we can tell the press. Thank you. tammsyearten@gmail.com
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2 – SEND GOVERNOR QUINN A SHORT EMAIL
http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/pages/contactthegovernor.aspx
Just pick a few sentences. Speak from the heart!
Dear Governor Quinn,We support you for your smart and principled decision to close the supermax.Do not support the plan to expand Tamms into a new medium-security prison.
• Conversion would be difficult, costly and unrealistic. Tamms was designed to impose sensory deprivation and inhibit movement. A regular prison requires a yard, cafeteria, classrooms, library and contact visitation area. Tamms has none of these. Illinois is not likely to find millions of dollars to rebuild this prison. If you keep it open, who knows what will happen. Close it.• No new prison construction. Expanding the supermax from 160 to 1000 men is essentially building a new prison. Other states are safely reducing their prison populations and closing prisons, and Illinois should be too. Don’t expand a prison just to save jobs. Put jobs where we need them.• Prison-building is not a humane or cost-effective solution to overcrowding. Overcrowding does not justify building new beds. Our prison overpopulation should be addressed with diversion programs, earned sentence credits, improved parole practices, and services that lower recidivism.• Treatment not Tamms. Thousands of people with mental illnesses are incarcerated in Illinois and disproportionately placed in isolation. This is both cruel and exorbitantly expensive. Yet critical services, including mental health treatment, substance abuse counseling and rehabilitative programming are severely underfunded. The $26 million Tamms budget allocation would be better spent on programs that prevent incarceration and decrease recidivism.
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3 – WATCH THE CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT TODAY
Today Senator Durbin is holding Congressional Hearings called “Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal and Public Safety Consequences.” These hearings will support the growing consensus that supermax prisons are uniquely cruel, destructive and expensive — and a historic wrong-turn.
Watch the hearings here Tuesday, June 19 at 10:00am.
http://www.judiciary.senate.
Incredible speakers. See Commissioner Christopher Epps testify that when Mississippi closed its supermax, the state saved millions of dollars and saw prison violence plummet.
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Forward. Ask some friends to call. Email us with questions or anything else at tammsyearten@gmail.com
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