Blues Benefits Tamms Prison Protest Group
On Saturday, March 15 2007, The Hideout, one of Chicago’s best kept entertainment secrets, will host a benefit for the Tamms Year Ten Coalition. Music includes our own Elmore James Jr. and Rupert.
Tamms Ten Year Campaign is a coalition to publicize and protest the conditions at Tamms C-MAX prison in Illinois. To mark the tenth anniversary of the prison’s opening in downstate Illinois, the group has scheduled a series of events to raise funds and awareness of the prison conditions.
In their own words…
"The Year Ten coalition asks the people of Illinois to join our coalition of prisoners, families and concerned citizens in protesting the IDOC’s misguided and inhumane policies, and in calling for legislation to end the torture of prisoners in Illinois."Curious, I did a little Google research on the facility. This looks like an awfully bad place. I don’t really know enough to take a position on it, but I thoroughly support the efforts of the Ten Year Coalition to bring attention to the situation.
The Hideout is located just east of Elston and north of North Ave. As they say, “The Hideout is a regular guy bar for irregular folks who just don’t fit in, or just don’t want to fit in.”
They host a lot of benefits there, and definitely have a strong political point of view. That’s so unusual for a commercial operation, but the risk has gained them a strong following of bands and music fans who share this way of looking at the world, and wish to celebrate it together.
We’re looking forward to performing there on the Ides of March.
Labels: benefit, blues, chicago, entertainment, music, prison, protest
posted by Dave Lenef at
1:38 PM
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1 Comments:
Men at Tamms C-MAX have been kept there in solitary confinement 24/7 for years and years--with no human contact, no classes, no programs, no communal activity, no religious fellowship, and no phone calls to their children, wives, parents, and siblings.
Prolonged isolation is known to provoke mental health problems even in healthy people. Mental problems are widespread at Tamms: psychosis, anxiety disorders, extreme use of psychotropic medication, non-stop screaming, severe and disfiguring self-mutilation, suicide attempts, and suicide.
These men have no due process--many do not know why they are there, and no one knows when they can leave. They are detainees being held by the IDOC. Many of these guys did not have any disciplinary problems at other prisons. Some never received a ticket. Many of these men have been there a decade.
There is no evidence that Tamms deters violence or improves rehabilitation. In fact, the opposite. It cuts family contact and damages people who will then be expected to function in society with post-traumatic stress disorders.
Humans have a physiological need for social contact. That is why the U.S. government keeps enemy combatants in prolonged in isolation to "break them down" for interrogation. These are not enemy combatants--or enemies--this is what the IDOC is doing to our sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. And the cost per year to do this is more than any other prison in the state. Estimates are between 90 and 100 thousand per prisoner per year.
Go to YearTen.org to learn more about Tamms C-MAX prison. And to read testimony from the men there!
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