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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Prisons |
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CU Citizens for Peace and Justice Sees First Victory in New Year. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sandra Ahten
Email: spiritofsandra (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-367-6345 |
01 Jan 2005
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The new year has brought a change of policy at the Champaign County Jail. The Sheriff Department has changed the visiting policy, eliminating the 50 person maximum on the number of visitors allowed per visiting session. Activism works! Read all about it! |
Jan. 1, 2005
The new year has brought a change of policy at the Champaign County Jail. The Sheriff Department has changed the visiting policy, eliminating the 50 person maximum on the number of visitors allowed per visiting session. The advocacy group CU Citizens for Peace and Justice is thrilled with the decision.
Under previous policy, in order to be assured a visit, visitors would have to arrive 2 or 3 hours before visiting time started so that they could be one of the first fifty people in line. Under the new policy the Sheriff’s department has stated that anyone who arrives at the jail before the hours for visiting are over will be allowed to visit.
A sergeant with the Sheriff’s office was interviewed by WCIA today. I was there during the interview, as I had just been interviewed as a representative for CU Citizens for Peace and Justice. He said they had made the change as soon as it was “brought to their attention that it was a problem.” He also talked at length about the concern for the mental health of the inmates and that the Department recognized the need for the inmates to have contact with their families.
With this acknowledgment, CU Citizens for Peace and Justice intend to continue with their plan to advocate for the additional changes that they have determined necessary in light of the 3 suicides at the county jail in the last six month. Included is a focus on eliminating the extortionate phone contract that provides a $14,000 a month kickback to the county.
To read more about this story see
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/22865/index.php
To sign the petition that will be presented to the County Board on January 20 go to
http://www.petitiononline.com/cucfpj/petition.html
CU Citizens is a Champaign/Urbana multi-racial and multi-ethnic organization that works to education the citizens on local policy, thereby building coalitions to effect governmental change.
In 2004 CU Citizens for Peace and Justice addressed two issues and saw victory on both items. They successfully lobbied to stop the Champaign Police Department from providing tasers (stun guns) for their officers. They also advocated for two men who were arrested for “eavesdropping” while they were filming police stops to have their charges dropped.
To become involved with CU Citizens For Peace and Justice go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cu_citizens/ |
This work is in the public domain |
