URGENT ACTION ALERT: Call your Senator to Support Tamms and IYC Closures!
Posted on November 27, 2012
From Tamms Year Ten. Please act now if you have not already!
Hi friends,
As you may have heard, there will be an attempt to override the governor’s veto of the Tamms funding in the veto session, as early as Tuesday or Weds! We have been reaching out to our members and our organizational allies to contact their representatives immediately, especially their senators.
We have this link for people set up that makes it so easy to send an email to legislators (text below): http://tinyurl.com/
Thank you so much.
Laurie Jo Reynolds | Tamms Year Ten |773-505-3896
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TEXT OF LETTER AT LINK
Dear Senator,
In the upcoming veto session, please VOTE NO on any effort to restore funding for Tamms or the other prisons slated for closure. Stop throwing good money after bad.
• Tamms costs $26 million per year and is 2/3 empty. There are zero youth left in Murphysboro. Close these expensive, empty prisons. Reallocate the money to the Department of Child and Family Services.
• Human rights monitors condemn Tamms because it violates international standards for humane treatment. Dehumanizing forms of punishment are never necessary for security.
• Solitary confinement causes lasting psychological damage. It provokes hallucinations, self-mutilation, psychosis and suicide.
• Supermaxes make us less safe: they worsen behavior, increase tensions and cause mental breakdowns.
• Violence has plummeted in states that have closed supermax prisons or sharply curtailed the use of solitary.
• The IDOC states that only 25 men at Tamms even need heightened security protocols. Pontiac is at 96% capacity and can easily absorb and effectively manage all 139 men from Tamms.
• No jobs are lost. All employees have been reassigned to understaffed prisons, saving millions in overtime pay. There are five other prisons within a 90 mile radius of Tamms.
Stand with Governor Quinn on the side of fiscal prudence, sound public policy and human rights.
I am your constituent. Please write back and let me know if you will uphold the governor’s reduction veto for SB2427, and actively push for the closure of Tamms.
Respectfully yours,
