“Critical moment tomorrow!/AFSCME: Reject Torture, Stop the Lies and Remember the Real Story at Tamms” @ Tamms Year Ten
Posted on August 8, 2012
From Tamms Year Ten:
AFSCME Protest: Reject Torture, Stop the Lies and Remember the Real Story at Tamms
AFSCME Protest: Reject Torture, Stop the Lies and Remember the Real Story at Tamms
WHEN: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012, 11:30am actions and NOON press conference
WHERE: AFSCME, Council 31 Headquarters, 205 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago IL 60601
WHAT: Press conference, picket and sit-in at the AFSCME Council 31 Headquarters to demand that the union. Mothers and human rights advocates will remind AFSCME what happens at Tamms supermax and ask the union to:
2. End the fear-mongering and correct the misinformation about Tamms in their lawsuit and their press releases
3. Promote simple solutions to alleviate prison overcrowding, rather than suing the state to keep half empty prisons open. (The suspension of meritorious good time credits in 2010 led to a huge spike in the prison population, but the legislature delivered SB2621 last session to bring them back.)
4. Honor their own progressive past and remember that mass incarceration is the civil rights issue of our time
WHY: After weeks of running to the media with misrepresentations and scare tactics, the correctional officer’s union (AFSCME) filed an injunction to stop the prison closures. A prison that leads men to compulsively attempt suicide, smear excrement and self-mutilate is one that a progressive union should reject. AFSCME is defending the policies at a supermax condemned by international and local human rights monitors!
WHO:
Moms of men at Tamms who will tell individual stories for 30 seconds each
Malcolm C. Young, Director, Program for Prison Reentry Strategies at Northwestern University Law School Bluhm Legal Clinic
Professor Stephen F. Eisenman, author of Abu Ghraib Effect
Rory Guerra, Executive Director, New Saints of Humboldt Park
Laurie Jo Reynolds, Organizer, Tamms Year Ten
Family members, formerly incarcerated men from Tamms and concerned citizens
*We have Spanish speaking moms*
VISUAL:
We will give awards for the:
“Union on the Wrong Side of History”
“Union Most Likely to Act Like a Private Prison”
“Union Most Likely to File A Lawsuit About Overcrowding But Not Support a Bill to Reduce Overcrowding”
“Union Most LIkely to Have MLK Plastered All Over Their Website But Dishonor His Legacy”
People with signs that say:
I AM A MAN (after the signs from the civil rights movement)
I AM A MOM (after the signs from the civil rights movement)
TORTURE IS A CRIME NOT A CAREER
MY BROTHER IS A HUMAN BEING
MY SON IS NOT A PAYCHECK
WE SUPPORT UNIONS THAT SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS
TAMMS SHOCKS THE CONSCIENCE
TAMMS DESTROYS LIVES
WHAT WOULD MLK DO?
“I AM A MAN” signs first carried in Memphis here signify that men at Tamms, and prisoners everywhere have fundamental human rights, and that human dignity is inseparable from a progressive labor movement. Other signs will read “I AM A MOM” and “MY UNCLE IS A MAN” to indicate that the families of men at Tamms are also devastated by the prison’s destructive regime of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation. Those most affected by the prison live in Cook County, not Southern Illinois.
TY10 is a grassroots coalition formed to bring the harm of long-term isolation at Tamms to the attention of the legislature and the governor. TY10 is committed to ending the use of long-term solitary confinement and other forms of cruel, degrading and inhumane forms of punishment. It was formed in 2008 on the tenth anniversary of the opening of Tamms and has worked with state legislators to reform, and now close, the prison.
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