Tamms supermax legislation

HB 2633 was introduced by Rep. Julie Hamos and 20 co-sponsors immediately signed on. Tamms bill factsheet and learn about this bill.

Reflections

Since I didn’t get to share my reflections with the class or the surprisingly large amount of people who came for the Stateville Speaks event, I’ll post mine here.

I enrolled in the Stateville Speaks class because I thought the subject material we’d learn would be interesting, the thought of working as a class to publish an edition of Stateville Speaks sounded exciting, and I had taken Laurie Jo before and I knew that she is a very unique teacher and deeply invested in prison system issues, especially Tamms.  Even though I’m a film major and I knew nothing about the prison system or journalism or really anything pertaining to the class, I knew it would be a good experience.  At first, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t so sure it was really a good choice for me to be taking the class.  Everything seemed chaotic and somewhat disorganized, and we had random guest speakers every week and all these letters to organize.. I just wasn’t really sure what we were doing or if any of the things we were doing in class would help with the publication.  Looking back though, everything we did in that class helped in some way towards our publication- whether it be sparking in interest in certain topics through the various readings we were given, or through the diverse speakers that we heard, or learning how to make a professional, kick ass publication through some gurus we heard from.  I can safetly say I learned something every time I stepped into the classroom, even though some days it wasn’t yet clear how it pertained to the publication. Now I understand that in order to create a truly great publication, we had to explore all areas of the prison system, and hear accounts from all different types of people involved in it.  One day I was crying to Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins’ tragic story of her sister’s death, the next I was learning what challenges the IDOC faces and how they go about their business,  another day I’d be learning how Akeem turned his life around by creating the Save Our Sons organization once he got out of prison for charges relating to drug distribution.   It was a fascinating class, and I think every single student got something out of every Wednesday.  I can’t believe Laurie-Jo was able to squeeze all of these great resources into one semester, but she did and I believe it has made all the difference in our publication. 

The event was amazing.  I had no idea the turnout would be so great, or that the speakers lined up to talk would do such a great job, or that the audience would be so genuinely interested in these topics, judging by their sincere questions and responses. It made me proud to have been in the class and to have been working on the publication because I felt like the important messages of needed change in the corrections sphere were actually getting across to a large amount of people.  Everyone involved, great job.  Seriously.  That was really something, and I’m glad to have been part of it.

Just wanted to say…

I was amazed with the presentation yesterday and all the support and response all our hard work is getting. Congrats to all of you for your fantastic work!

I received the following Facebook message yesterday from Peter Wagner, the Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative (in regards to my paper about Felony Disenfranchisement):

Thanks for the mention of the Census Bureau’s prison miscount in your Stateville Speaks editorial.

For what it’s worth, the prison miscount’s impact on state and federal funding is actually extremely small. Most government programs are too sophisticated to be fooled by this; but the impact on the political process and redistricting is quite large. We have a report about prison-based gerrymandering in Illinois scheduled for release in January.

Stay tuned. http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org

http://www.prisonpolicy.org

-Peter Wagner

Thanksgiving poll

Victims Voices

Victims voice’s need to be be heard too. When Jennifer Bishop came to speak in class, I was completely touched.  I have had a little experience with a victim of a crime.  My 2nd cousin’s family was murdered, and the surviving member of that family, my 2nd cousin, returns every year to Leavenworth Maximum Security Prison every year, in Leavenworth Kansas, in order to keep the guilty man from receiving parole.  I see how she hurts, just as I saw Jennifer hurting.  It is important to take into consideration that the victims aren’t just the ones that literally got physically hurt. Their families and friends are suffering emotionally, as the pain and hurt never fully goes away.  I never thought about the ways victims deal with their pain. Either buried away in a place that at any moment can be dug up when a familiar smell, name or memory comes to mind. Or victims can take the pain and turn it around into something positive to help them deal.  Websites are dedicated to just this: the victims.  After looking over some of  them I realized that it never really ends at the

Reflections From Guest Speaker Darrell Cannon

Darrell Cannon is one of the best speakers that has come to our class, and one of the best speakers that I have ever heard. He was tortured by officers of the Chicago Police Department trained by Jon Burge. Jon Burge used torture tactics such as suffocation and even attaching electrical clips to men’s testicles to try to get them to confess. Another horrible torture tactic that Darrell Cannon described- a police officer loaded a gun (or made the sounds of loading a gun) and said they he would shoot Darrell Cannon if he did not confess. Mr. Cannon refused, and was forced to go through the trauma of thinking that he would be shot in the mouth three times in a row. The abuses that Mr. Cannon described made me cringe, they made me

Response to Victim’s Websites

It was not until Jennifer Bishop Jenkins came in to speak to our class about victim’s rights did I ever really start thinking about victim’s rights at all. To me, being a victim seemed like such a passive and depressing experience, but it really isn’t. You can do a lot of things as an active victim to ensure that you’re wishes are being considered, that the offender is serving his/her crime, and to ensure your own safely as well as your family’s. Websites such as www.murdervictims.com/Parole and http://www.citizensagainsthomicide.org have a set of guidelines to follow when protesting the parole of the offender and offer legal help. This includes writing a detailed description of the crime, a history of the victim’s life, their future goals and reasons why the offender shouldn’t be paroled. I understand why many victims would want to do this- especially if they feel that the offender is only spending a minimal amount of time in prison, yet at the same time I feel like it is a very anti-restorative justice movement. Victims don’t seem to have any concern for rehabilitative

Darrell Cannons’s Speech

I am honestly in awe of his strength and eloquence.  The speech was beautiful.  I actually saw him speak the Saturday before at an event at the University of Chicago against the death penalty and it was the same day he attended his sisters funeral.  I remember him saying that even though relatives were still at his house, he felt obligated to come to the event to speak out and never misses an opportunity as it is important to him that people are aware and active.  I cannot start to imagine how it must feel to lose loved ones while incarcerated, and it is so inspiring to see how strong he is these days.  His story helped put everything in perspective for me and gave me a chance to try to imagine what he must have gone through.

As he was describing the torture scene with the officers, I felt his helplessness and anger.  For those who were not present, he explained how the police showed up at his house, arrested him and took him to an isolated forested area in which they continued to torture him into confessions.  They used methods such as using electric cattle shockers to his testicles, hanging him by his handcuffs, russian roulette with a shotgun in his mouth, and verbal humiliation.  By the end, he had endured so much pain that he said if they asked

Darrell Cannon Discussion/My interrogation training

Having Darrell speak to the class about his experiences in prison and with torture was interesting as well as depressing. The amount of physical abuse he endured accompanied with the mental torture that lasted throughout his prison sentence seems remarkable that a human being can survive and still remain a competent individual. I think Darrell’s terrifying descriptions of life in prison certainly confirm why some prisoners become even more mentally unstable after release. I can almost understand why recidivism rates are high. The one thing that Darrell mentioned at the beginning of his discussion was the torture that he suffered through inflicted by detectives under the command of Jon Burge. I am very disheartened

Darrell Cannon, Rip Van Winkle and Questions of Accountability

After spending 24 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Darrell Cannon became a free man, only to find his world completely changed. Despite being tortured and wrongfully imprisoned, Cannon was most upset about having lost many of his loved ones. “I lost everything,” he said, choking back on his tears. He had just recently put his sister to rest. It was as if Darrell Cannon had slept through a nightmare and woke up to find himself living through an actual nightmare. How would one react in this situation? With sadness? With anger? Cannon expressed both. And I would be lying if I didn’t say I expected him to forgive his torturers. But thinking back on his experiences now, I realize I was in the wrong in expecting him to be forgiving. He wasn’t in a deep slumber. He was beaten; severely enough to confess to something he did not do. And for taking the fall for someone else, he was imprisoned for 24 years, 9 of them served in a place where he felt insanity was imminent. Cannon lost everything; the people he loved are gone, and he can’t ever get them back.

What really struck me during Darrell’s lecture was the issue of accountability. Here’s the definition from Merriam-Webster:

the quality or state of being accountable ; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions <public officials lacking accountability>

We talked about accountability when we discussed the death of Timothy Souders in a Michigan correctional facility. Who was accountable for his death? Nobody was held accountable, and nobody took the responsibility for his death.

It’s pretty clear who was mostly accountable for the torture Darrell and others like him experienced. Or is it?

Response to Darrell Cannon’s Speech

Darrell was one of the best public speakers I have ever heard in my life.  Almost every part of his story was so extremely interesting from how he got to prison in the first place, to his life at Tamms, to his life now.  The one thing that really struck me was his attitude towards Burge and his “crew” that tortured him into confessing to a crime he really didn’t commit.  He said that he hates them every day of his life, and doesn’t expect his attitude to change ever.  I thought this was so interesting, since he seems like such a Christian man, one of moral character in principle, that he can’t seem to forgive these men for that they did to him.  Its understandable to me, they took away, what, 24 years of his life with his wife and children and family for something he never did.  If I were him and had some of the best years of my life taken from me, I’d couldn’t be angrier either.  What’s amazing about Darrell though, is that he doesn’t show how angry or mentally scarred he is from the whole experience.  He was so kind, and funny and happy and nice, if I ever met him on the street I would have never guessed he had been tortured and put in prison.  I really am awed at his

Coerced Confessions

Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to hear Darrell Cannon speak in class.  However, the topic of coerced confessions has been of great interest to me since taking a course that covered issues related to Psychology and Law.  Through my internship this semester I am working with a White Paper written about this topic.  The paper is currently a draft, but it does an excellent job of covering the topic and offers recommendations to reform the process of interrogation.  If you go to the first link, you can find the paper.  I hope you guys enjoy this and it teaches you more about this topic.  For those of you who haven’t been exposed to the Reid technique of police interrogation, I would love to hear how this strikes you after reading the section regarding it.  This technique drives me crazy!!

The second link I have included will direct you to a webpage that connects you with the story of the first person ever to be exonerated by DNA evidence in 1989 here in Illinois.  I found this story to be rather insane as the woman who accused Gary Dotson completely made up a story of rape incase she became pregnant after having consensual sex with her boyfriend at the time.  She thought it would be better to make up this story and apparently put a man behind bars than face her parents with the news of being pregnant.  Wow!

http://www.ap-ls.org/links/confessions.pdf

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/ilDotsonSummary.html

WELCOME TO THE STATEVILLE SPEAKS BLOG

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This is the blog for the Loyola edition of Stateville Speaks, a print publication written in collaboration with current Illinois prisoners about topics in criminal justice and prison life.  Join our facebook page!

This overhead view of Stateville would never be allowed into our print publication because all aerial views of prisons are censored.

Darrell Cannon-“You can be anything you wanna be”

The presentation of Darrell Cannon was astonishing. Sitting there and listening to him, it was almost unimaginable to most of us how a person can go through so much and still remain sane. But not only he persevered though days of unthinkable torture (cattle-rods, fake shotgun shots, humiliation) and nine years of solitude in Tamms, he is stronger now than he was before, as his rage and anger at what was done to him push  him forward.

One has to admire the  courage of all victims that are willing to relive the pain of their suffering, only so they can teach others and raise awareness about the realities they lived through. What struck me most about Mr. Cannon, was his manners (which he explained by the strong family ties and ethic that he was raised with). Having been in Tamms for 9 years for a crime he was tortured to confessed to, it is striking that he managed to raise above those that were trying tirelessly to bring him down and not for once utter an ugly jargon word at an officer.

His presentation made me wonder about a lot of things though…

Speech on Police Torture

Why are stories like these not reported until so many years later that they can not prosecute Burge or the police offcers who did this? And why would anyone need to be in Tamms solitary confinement for 9 years? Couldn’t the guards recognize that he didn’t need to be there after he was there for a couple years?

Darrell Cannon Presentation/Tamms

First of all, having the opportunity to listen to Darrell Cannon’s first hand experience was very beneficial.  I really value his courage to reflect on such horrible memories and speak about them to a group of people.  This was/is clearly a tragedy. No doubt about it.  Not only did he lose 24 years of his life, but he was tortured and lost everything that had meaning to him. I can’t even begin to imagine what he is going through.

During his presentation I could not help but wonder how in the world a jury convicted him.  Since he confessed because of being tortured, why wasn’t the confession inadmissible?  His attorney could not have proved that he the confession was coerced?  I’m sure that the answers to these questions only emphasis the flaws in the system. Darrell mentioned that the prosecution did not have any witnesses again him, so did they base the conviction solely on the confession?

I also found the actions of the parole board very flawed.  They constantly refused to grant him parole, yet the state’s attorneys office worked out a deal with him.  Again, flaws in the system.  In my opinion, in order for the criminal justice system to work efficiently, all of its members must be on the same page. If they’re not, like in Darrell’s situation, it’ll be chaotic.

Finally, I think that Darrell’s descriptions and thoughts of Tamms Correctional Center allowed me to realize how awful of a place it really is.  At one point Darrell said, “Tamms is not for humans.”  When he said this, I could not help but wonder how he survived and stayed sane for the nine years he was confined there.  He mentioned that people around him were going crazy and allowing the institution to “break” them.  But Darrell also told us that there were some positives to his experience.  For instance, some of the guards were friendly. Although this is a minor detail, I think that it shows Darrell’s credibility and honesty.

This really was an eye opening experience.  I can’t help but think about those who were wrongly convicted and are currently in prison, with no way out.

Prison Town trailer

Questions of bias

After reading all of these articles and essays from class, what I find interesting is that it usually plays up the sympathetic side of the prisoner. I find myself feeling bad for the prisoner, and yes, there is quite a lot of evidence that shows the injustice that they face. But I just wonder how I would feel if I read something from the point-of-view of a victim. For example, I read a story about a woman who murdered her mother-in-law, but the reason she was in prison was only briefly mentioned. Instead it described the horrible conditions she dealt with while in prison, and by the end I felt sorry for her. But imagine if I read about the same situation, except told through the eyes of someone in the victim’s family. I bet the murderer would come across as a monster, and I would believe it too.

This all just shows how influential the writing is on how you form your opinions. It is easy to feel connected to the side that is being victimized.  As of now, we are focusing more on the perspective of the prisoners,

Academia inside Prison Walls

As criminal justice students, we often have few opportunities to read work by prisoners or ever hear what prisoners have to say about prison. What we are exposed to, however, are scholarly articles, written by academics, maybe with a little input from prisoners themselves but information gathered mostly from statistics and other quantitative research. I guess I speak for my fellow Criminal Justice students when I say that it is refreshing to hear what inmates themselves have to say, and not graduate students who have never experienced prison themselves, either through reading Stateville Speaks articles or perusing the work of Joe Dole, a current inmate who has conducted very in-depth research on the topic of recidivism.

When Joe’s research was handed to me last week in class, I (ashamedly) did not expect a high quality of work from an inmate. I was astounded. Joe’s work is very well written, cited properly, and uses reliable sources. Like a scholarly work, Joe utilized statistical information and existing qualitative research to support his argument. I am ashamed that I held certain presumptions before really looking at his work. I was under the assumption that I should not expect too much quality from his work as, from learning in my CJ courses, many inmates come from low-income areas, and often did not have access to good education. Not only does Dole make an argument to increase lifers’ access to parole, but he provides solutions to the problems of recidivism, and uses the information he compiled to create profiles of recidivists.

Though the research is quality work, I doubt that his paper will make its way into the classrooms and be regarded as “scholarly work.” I even wonder if correctional experts or sentencing panels would consult the research of a prisoner in their decision making. Nevertheless, I find it unfortunate that the work of Joe Dole and others like him goes unheard, despite the value in their first-hand experience of life behind bars.

Timothy Souders; punished to the point of death?

I just read the article about the death of 21-year-old Timothy Souders while he was incarcerated in a segregation cell at Southern Michigan Correctional.  The article horrified me because of the multiple injustices involved in the case.  First of all, TS shouldn’t have been in solitary confinement when his conditions of bipolar disorder, hyperactivity and depression (which had caused him to attempt suicide several times) were known to the staff. Also, he had a couple of physical conditions such as bedsores and urine burns, but they were not properly treated. Second of all, I really don’t understand the point of “top of the bed restraints” even if they are supposed to only be used for an hour or two when an inmate is severely acting up.  Don’t inmates have any freedom of movement?  Nevertheless, the “top of the bed restraint” went on far longer than it ever should have- 17 hours, with no breaks.  TS urinated on himself, was kept in a room that was over 100 degrees and had trouble eating, drinking and even sitting up and walking.  Once they let him up to shower, he could barely walk and ended up passing out/falling while in the shower.  After he was wheelchaired back to his cell, he was yet again put on “top of the bed restraints,” even though it seems pretty obvious he was in no condition to be any kind of a threat to anyone or anything.  A couple hours later, he was taken off restraint and fell off of the cement block.  They helped him back up and a little while later he fell off of the toilet and was not helped for 46 minutes.  What are the personnel doing at this prison? Why wouldn’t they be watching in inmate that they knew was in such weak condition? A little while later, he was found dead in his cell.  This treatment is just intolerable to me, and Timothy Souders isn’t a special case of severe mistreatment.  In 2006, the prison system in California lost one inmate a week to malpractice or neglect.  I can’t figure out what the problem is- is there not enough staff to check up on all of the inmates at least once every half hour?  Or is it that many of them just disregard the inmates’ human rights, like those soldiers at Abu Ghraib? Whatever the case, this problem needs to be fixed. It is simply inhumane and unconstitutional for the system to let such instances happen.