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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Illinois' Repressive Exports Set Bad Example For Students |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sam Smith
(No verified email address) |
27 May 2001
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Editor's Note: Sam Smith notes the poor example that a former Illinois correctional leader is setting in by his leadeship, under which students in DC schools were strip-searched to "teach" them proper behavior. Will we have such outrages in Urbana when armed police in schools have time to fully implement programs of repression designed to intimidate students? It should also be noted that Illinois exported Terry Gainer, former head of Illinois State Police, to DC where, as assistant police chief, he led the repressive reponse to demonstrations against the World Bank in April, 2000. ML |
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The Article |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 May 2001
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THE STRIP SEARCH SOCIETY
JUSTIN BLUM & YOLANDA WOODLEE, WASHINGTON POST: Corrections officers strip-searched as many as five District middle school students at the D.C. Jail last week on a visit arranged by two teachers who wanted to show a group of misbehaving children what would happen if they got arrested, according to jail officials and one of the students. The decision to order the pupils from Evans Middle School to disrobe apparently was made jointly by jail employees and the teachers, officials said. They said the students, all of them boys, may have been stripped within view of inmates in holding cells. Three jail officers and the two teachers were placed on leave yesterday pending the outcome of separate investigations by the city's Department of Corrections and the school system. None of the employees was identified. "I'm appalled," said Odie Washington, head of the Department of Corrections. "I was absolutely outraged . . . because I could not believe that kids would be subjected to any strip-search procedure in the jail." . . . A jail worker who said he saw what happened and who spoke on condition of anonymity recalled that some of the students were behaving badly and that one of them was made an example . . . School Superintendent Paul L. Vance said he learned of the strip-search only yesterday. "I am just horrified," Vance said. "I'm shocked at the whole matter -- that anything like this could possibly happen."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A67706-2001May23.html
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW: In fact, there's no reason for officials to be shocked. This is merely an incremental adornment of the national zero tolerance policy towards the young so loudly hailed by politicians and the media. It reflects with absolute accuracy the cultural paradigm that declares the most minimal transgression grounds for stripping individuals not only of their clothes but of their rights - witness the recent Supreme Court decision on warrantless arrests of minor traffic violators.
It should also come as no surprise to Odie Washington and those who chose him, as the corrections director came to DC a couple of years ago from Illinois' odious prison system.
Illinois is the birthplace of the notorious supermax prisons, America's answer to the Soviet gulag. Amnesty International has stated that many conditions in US supermax prisons "violate international standards, and in some facilities conditions constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Prolonged isolation in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation can cause severe physical and psychological damage." The UN Human Right Commission has also condemned some supermax practices.
At the opening of Tamms Correction Center, Odie Washington said, "This is a proud day for the more than 15,000 dedicated employees of the Illinois Department of Corrections." Tamms is the most stringent correctional facility in the state. Inmates at Tamms are not be allowed to make telephone calls, have only limited contact with each other and prison staff, and contact with visitors is not allowed. The inmates are handcuffed and shackled whenever they are out of their cellblock, and recreation is allowed only individually without recreation equipment. Inmates are not permitted to smoke, and have less personal property in their cells than allowed in any other prison in Illinois.
Warden George Welborn says, "Tamms is not about rehabilitation, it's about punishment . . . Some people may never leave." According to a report by prison activists, "prisoners at Tamms are forced to spend 24 hours a day, close to seven days a week in their single 8' x 10' concrete cement cells, which contain concrete beds, and stainless steel sinks, toilets, and mirrors. Although each cell has a window, the windows cannot be opened and the only way to look out of them is to stand on the bed. The doors to each cell are made of metal wire mesh which make it difficult to look out. Although the doors allow sounds to travel inside and outside the cell, a large echoing effect is created making communication difficult and painful. Further, guards have Plexiglas shields which can be placed over the doors which completely isolate the prisoner inside his cell.
The "yard" is a 12 ' x 30' enclosed, empty box with concrete cement walls and floor. The ceiling is composed partially of steel slates and wire mesh which allows a minimal amount of fresh air and sunshine. Prisoners report that the yard is overbearingly hot on summer days, and during yard time prisoners are not allowed to have any water. (If the prisoner needs water his yard time is terminated.)
All visits, legal or personal, are non-contact visits conducted in glass boxes through a glass window with a voice activated system. During these visits, the prisoners are handcuffed to their chairs. Prisoners are strip searched and their rectums are probed both before and after each non-contact visit.
Whenever a prisoner leaves his cell (not including yard and shower) he is strip searched, probed, and shackled. When a prisoner is shackled, his wrists are handcuffed through the slot in his door, he is forced to his knees, where he must bend over while the guards apply chains to his legs. Guards search the prisoner's cell every time he is out of it, and routinely guards handcuff prisoners to a "slave hook" in the cell while searching it when he is present. Guards are said to routinely use pepper spay on prisoners and conduct cell extractions in full riot gear.
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The Article |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 May 2001
|
THE STRIP SEARCH SOCIETY
JUSTIN BLUM & YOLANDA WOODLEE, WASHINGTON POST: Corrections officers strip-searched as many as five District middle school students at the D.C. Jail last week on a visit arranged by two teachers who wanted to show a group of misbehaving children what would happen if they got arrested, according to jail officials and one of the students. The decision to order the pupils from Evans Middle School to disrobe apparently was made jointly by jail employees and the teachers, officials said. They said the students, all of them boys, may have been stripped within view of inmates in holding cells. Three jail officers and the two teachers were placed on leave yesterday pending the outcome of separate investigations by the city's Department of Corrections and the school system. None of the employees was identified. "I'm appalled," said Odie Washington, head of the Department of Corrections. "I was absolutely outraged . . . because I could not believe that kids would be subjected to any strip-search procedure in the jail." . . . A jail worker who said he saw what happened and who spoke on condition of anonymity recalled that some of the students were behaving badly and that one of them was made an example . . . School Superintendent Paul L. Vance said he learned of the strip-search only yesterday. "I am just horrified," Vance said. "I'm shocked at the whole matter -- that anything like this could possibly happen."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A67706-2001May23.html
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW: In fact, there's no reason for officials to be shocked. This is merely an incremental adornment of the national zero tolerance policy towards the young so loudly hailed by politicians and the media. It reflects with absolute accuracy the cultural paradigm that declares the most minimal transgression grounds for stripping individuals not only of their clothes but of their rights - witness the recent Supreme Court decision on warrantless arrests of minor traffic violators.
It should also come as no surprise to Odie Washington and those who chose him, as the corrections director came to DC a couple of years ago from Illinois' odious prison system.
Illinois is the birthplace of the notorious supermax prisons, America's answer to the Soviet gulag. Amnesty International has stated that many conditions in US supermax prisons "violate international standards, and in some facilities conditions constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Prolonged isolation in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation can cause severe physical and psychological damage." The UN Human Right Commission has also condemned some supermax practices.
At the opening of Tamms Correction Center, Odie Washington said, "This is a proud day for the more than 15,000 dedicated employees of the Illinois Department of Corrections." Tamms is the most stringent correctional facility in the state. Inmates at Tamms are not be allowed to make telephone calls, have only limited contact with each other and prison staff, and contact with visitors is not allowed. The inmates are handcuffed and shackled whenever they are out of their cellblock, and recreation is allowed only individually without recreation equipment. Inmates are not permitted to smoke, and have less personal property in their cells than allowed in any other prison in Illinois.
Warden George Welborn says, "Tamms is not about rehabilitation, it's about punishment . . . Some people may never leave." According to a report by prison activists, "prisoners at Tamms are forced to spend 24 hours a day, close to seven days a week in their single 8' x 10' concrete cement cells, which contain concrete beds, and stainless steel sinks, toilets, and mirrors. Although each cell has a window, the windows cannot be opened and the only way to look out of them is to stand on the bed. The doors to each cell are made of metal wire mesh which make it difficult to look out. Although the doors allow sounds to travel inside and outside the cell, a large echoing effect is created making communication difficult and painful. Further, guards have Plexiglas shields which can be placed over the doors which completely isolate the prisoner inside his cell.
The "yard" is a 12 ' x 30' enclosed, empty box with concrete cement walls and floor. The ceiling is composed partially of steel slates and wire mesh which allows a minimal amount of fresh air and sunshine. Prisoners report that the yard is overbearingly hot on summer days, and during yard time prisoners are not allowed to have any water. (If the prisoner needs water his yard time is terminated.)
All visits, legal or personal, are non-contact visits conducted in glass boxes through a glass window with a voice activated system. During these visits, the prisoners are handcuffed to their chairs. Prisoners are strip searched and their rectums are probed both before and after each non-contact visit.
Whenever a prisoner leaves his cell (not including yard and shower) he is strip searched, probed, and shackled. When a prisoner is shackled, his wrists are handcuffed through the slot in his door, he is forced to his knees, where he must bend over while the guards apply chains to his legs. Guards search the prisoner's cell every time he is out of it, and routinely guards handcuff prisoners to a "slave hook" in the cell while searching it when he is present. Guards are said to routinely use pepper spay on prisoners and conduct cell extractions in full riot gear.
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