Mothers Protest Inhumane Treatment of Sons in Supermax Prison

[Whisp]

http://feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=13566

A group of mothers and sisters of inmates in an Illinois prison protested the conditions of the facility this week. Tamms Correctional Center in Chicago has been cited for inhumane treatment of its inmates, often locking them up for 24 hours a day with little or no breaks or interaction with others. Relatives were joined by past inmates of the prison and members of human rights advocacy groups for a press conference on Wednesday, following a legislative hearing on Governor Pat Quinn's plan to close the facility in order to save the state millions of dollars.

Showing support for this plan, family members spoke out about the inhumane treatment of inmates in the prison. One mother described her son's weight loss and slide into depression because of extreme isolation, while another spoke of her son's daily routine in order to stay active and sane, which involves walking in circles for hours around his windowless concrete cell. Many of the inmates in Tamms also have mental illnesses, on which solitary confinement is shown to have particularly damaging effects. Tens of thousands of the 2.3 million people currently incarcerated are forced into long-term solitary confinement within the U.S. prison system.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." n/t

[shawn703]

2. Aren't the Supermax prisons

Where they put the inmates that have a history of violence toward other inmates or the guards? On one hand you want to treat everyone humanely, but on the other you have to keep the rest of the population safe too.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. Supposed to be the worst of the worst inmates

The inmates that proved to be too tough to handle in ordinary Maximum Security is what SuperMax was intended for. The ones that won't use a toilet because a bowl or bucket is better to throw it on a guard. The ones that take half a dozed specially outfitted guards to transfer them from one cell to another etc.

Don't know if everyone in there really needs to be or not. But the concept of SuperMax and it's exorbitant price tag didn't come about as a way to punish prisoners as much as a need to be able to handle/control those that couldn't be handled in a Maximum Security facility.

[Doremus]

3. The more I see of our country the less I recognize it.

We are barbarians.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Yeah, but out of that 2.3 Million people in prison, only 80% or so are in for pot smoking

or some similar non-violent drug offense.


The fucking drug war is out of control.

[Neoma]

5. Wow.

Where'd you hear that?

[Warren DeMontague]

7. It's an estimate.

Seriously, the prisons are full of non-violent drug offenders. That IS a fact.

The drug warriors have used absurd hyperbole for years- goose, gander, etc.

[Neoma]

8. Would it save the government money...

Or would it fuck up the job market any worse if they let them go? Probably both I'm guessing.

I should mention that a lot of people with mental illness self-medicates, as the hospital calls it. (I'm not so sure I've met anyone that wasn't.) If you're arrested, they don't necessarily give you your pills on time. Or maybe not even at all. Very dangerous to skip pills... Or drink it down with alcohol, which is usually peoples weak spot.

In other words, there's a lot of people who need treatment on more than one level. But they're in jail.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. My position is, legalize and tax marijuana (and maybe psychedelics) adopt a harm reduction strategy

for other, hard drugs.

The 60 Billion we currently spend on the DEA could fund a lot of treatment on demand, the tax revenue from legal, regulated pot could do a serious job of refilling the public coffers of states like California... Not to mention, again, the costs of incarceration.

I'm of the opinion that prisons really ought to be for violent people and people who present a threat to others, first and foremost. There need to be other ways of "dealing", or not dealing, as the case may be, with people who have different problems like addiction.

[Neoma]

10. Except that even violent people are sometimes just really sick.

It'd have to be case by case and doctors would have to be involved. Otherwise, I agree...

[Warren DeMontague]

11. I distinguish between harming/endangering others and ones self, however.

And I think one legitimate function of prison is to separate the violent from the rest of us.

But when we're talking about things like drug use, the left-libertarian in me says peoples' bodies need to belong to them, period. Drive under the influence, neglect your kids, rob someone, then those are crimes and prosecute as such. But the idea that the government has the right to tell a consenting adult how to use his or her own body, bloodstream, nervous system... I have a problem with it, I find it disturbing that more people don't at least find the concept antithetical to real notions of liberty, and worst of all I think the whole mess is directly derived from the notion, popularized by Western monotheism, that we don't belong to ourselves, but rather to "God".

That said, I also have trouble envisioning meth being sold at the 7-11.