Progress Illinois

For years, human rights advocates have been pressing Illinois officials to clean up one of the state's dirtiest secrets: the human rights abuses taking place inside Tamms Correctional Center, the state's lone supermax facility. The prison has become notorious for locking scores of prisoners away in solitary confinement, some for more than a decade. Moreover, Tamms inmates have no access to a review process or adequate mental health evaluations. Worst of all, many of those same prisoners are ultimately released back into their communities with exacerbated psychological problems.

Today, the Department of Correction's interim director Michael Randle took an important step in acknowledging the problems at Tamms. But does his ten-point plan (PDF) go far enough?

The most vocal critics of the prison -- members of the Tamms Year Ten coalition -- don't think so. This afternoon, they put out this statement along with their own critique of Randle's plan:

We applaud the IDOC for moving in the right direction, as some of these reforms could mitigate the psychological damage caused by long-term isolation. However, the new plan presents no significant change for mentally ill prisoners. Tamms Year Ten, along with other human rights organizations, urges Gov. Quinn to institute independent monitoring of mental health diagnosis and treatment at Tamms to prevent the same neglect and abuse of prisoners documented in the Belleville News-Democrat expose.

Continue reading »

The pressure on the Quinn administration to reform the Tamms Correctional Center continues to grow. Yesterday, the U.S. director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) sent a sharply worded letter to the governor, highlighting the investigative work of the Belleville News Democrat, whose recent reporting buffeted concerns that no clear criteria exist for transferring inmates in and out of the supermax prison.

This is just the latest in a series of warnings from human rights organizations. In March and again in late August, Amnesty International voiced their own concerns about the psychological trauma experienced by Tamms inmates in solitary confinement. Locally, Tamms Year Ten has held a rally outside Chicago's Thompson Center and sent a letter to Quinn urging comprehensive reforms housed within HB 2633. (They're also throwing a fundraiser next week.)

Last Tuesday, the governor reiterated that he has commissioned Illinois Department of Corrections Director Michael Randle to look into the conditions at Tamms. But that progress has been slow. After all, Quinn appointed Randle back in May and gave him a clear mandate to assess the conditions. It's worth asking why that review is taking so long.

Below is the full text of the HRW letter (click the button in the upper righthand corner to expand):

Back in May, Gov. Pat Quinn called for an examination of the policies at Tamms Correctional Center in response to criticism that prisoners are languishing there in solitary confinement -- in some cases for more than a decade -- despite its intended purpose as a short-term incarceration facility.  Those seeking reforms at Tamms have primarily raised concerns about the lack of clear criteria for transfer in and out of the prison.  They have also pointed out that holding inmates in solitary confinement for such long periods of time often creates deep psychological trauma which can pose further problems once they're released back into their communities.

In an extensive article published over the weekend, the Belleview News-Democrat added some valuable reporting to this debate.  Included in their piece is some troubling data, such as the fact that 54 of the 247 inmates have been held there for ten years or more.  Furthermore, 55 were transferred to the facility for committing in-prison assaults "that did not lead to serious injury and can be attributed in some cases to mental illness and a need for self-protection."  The reporters also offer several case studies in how long-term solitary confinement has led to psychological deterioration in certain inmates.  They also interview the first warden at the prison:

[George] Welborn, who retired in 2002, said he never expected inmates to be held at Tamms for 10 years or more.

"I don't lose a lot of sleep over those guys who have been there 10 years ... (but) I think they should have been given the opportunity to go back to a reduced security facility and then, if they screw up again, it's right back to Tamms. It was not intended to be a place where guys would be there for eight to 10 years."

The whole article is worth a read.  Meanwhile, on the same day, the News-Democrat editorial page advocated for instituting more "smart and humane" policies at the prison:

Continue reading »

There's more fallout from the recent revelations that Iowa-based Agriprocessors Inc. -- the nation’s largest kosher meatpacker, which gained notoriety after a vicious Immigration Customs & Enforcement raid in May -- allegedly hired child laborers.

Via the New York Times, the company now might lose its kosher certification:

Rabbi Menachem Genack, who is in charge of kosher supervision for the Orthodox Union, the major kosher certifying organization in the United States, said he had set a deadline of “several weeks” for Agriprocessors to name a new chief executive, or the group would suspend supervision of kosher production at its plants.

“Because of the new charges in the state of Iowa, we believe it is in the best interest of the kosher consuming public to have new management with a new C.E.O., that will give people a new sense of confidence that all laws and regulations are being completely complied with,” Rabbi Genack said in an interview on Wednesday.

Losing the designation could destroy the company, which sells an estimated $80 million worth of kosher products annually. For more on the controversy in Postville, check out the ongoing reportig by Lynda Waddington, who has been covering the story closely for the Iowa Independent.

Earlier this year, immigrants rights advocates voiced their outrage over the shameful treatment of 400 undocumented workers who were arrested by Immigration Customs & Enforcement during a raid of Agriprocessors, a Postville, Iowa kosher meatpacking plant.  The detainees were separated from their families and herded like livestock into a cattle ground. Sadly, these immigrant workers were no stranger to human rights violations on the day of the raid. The AP has the story:

The owner and managers of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging that they hired minors and in some cases had children younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment such as circular saws, meat grinders and power shears. [...]

"All of the named individual defendants possessed shared knowledge that Agriprocessors employed undocumented aliens. It was likewise shared knowledge among the defendants that many of those workers were minors," the affidavit said.

Amazingly, these violations were all amassed over an eight-month stretch and none of the employees were paid wages for overtime.

Today, Amnesty International used Chicago's standing as a possible host for the 2016 Summer Olympics to shine a light on the city’s “flawed approach” to probing incidents of police brutality. The Sun-Times' Fran Spielman has the details:

At a news conference outside the mayor’s office, civil rights activists reiterated arguments they made last summer, when the City Council approved Daley’s plan to sever the Office of Professional Standards from the Police Department.

They argued that the landmark ordinance is undermined by a union contract tailor-made to protect rogue officers.

The contract bars the agency now known as the Independent Police Review Authority from investigating anonymous complaints about “anything short of criminal conduct”—even though many victims “fear retaliation” from police—and limits the use of past complaints needed to establish a “pattern of conduct, said Wendy Park, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“These … contract provisions and others tie IPRA’s hands … which may allow officers to escape discipline in many cases. We demand that the city drop these provisions from the next FOP contract, currently under negotiation,” Park said.

The activists highlighted several individual cases of brutality and Mayor Daley responded by "highlighting the changes he has already made to restore public confidence in investigations of police wrongdoing," including: "the appointments of career FBI agent Jody Weis as police superintendent and Los Angeles attorney Ilana Rosenzweig to head an OPS [Office of Professional Standards] that now has subpoena power and a six-month deadline to complete investigations."

Of course, despite these reforms, the city still refuses to make public the list of 662 police officers who amassed more than 10 citizen complaints between May 2001 and May 2006. A group of 27 aldermen requested that the list be furnished to them last year, but were rebuffed by the city's corporation counsel. A lengthy court battle has ensued.

As Ald. Toni Preckwinkle wrote in a Progress Illinois column on the matter back in April: "The reestablishment of trust will come only after the department accepts its responsibilities and begins to discipline, rather than shelter, officers who abuse the citizens they are sworn to protect."