Governor Pat Quinn’s decision to shutter Tamms Correctional Center, effective August 31, in order to save money is a landmark victory
for prison reform advocates who spent a decade fighting to close the facility that has held inmates for years in 24-hour solitary confinement.
“We
are ending the era of solitary confinement,” says Laurie Jo Reynolds,
an organizer with the Tamms Year Ten coalition, which ran a legislative
campaign to close the prison. Reynolds noted that other states, such as
Mississippi and Maine, also recently shut down solitary confinement
facilities and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) conducted a
Senate hearing last week on solitary confinement.
But Quinn’s
unilateral action goes against the wishes of the Illinois
General Assembly. It also further alienates the governor from AFSCME Council
31, the union representing many of the state's public employees. The union is steadfastly against the closings and other Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) shut downs, even though the governor's office says the moves will result in no public employee layoffs. Read more »
An open and logistical discussion of budding concealed carry legislation in
Illinois quickly turned into a heated debate between advocates from
both sides of the issue Monday night at the 