WHY YOU SHOULD COME: This is the time to try. There is so much negative press about torture in U.S. prisons overseas, we actually have a unique opportunity to bring Tamms into the spotlight and condemn the practice of permanent solitary confinement. And New York just passed a law banning solitary confinement for mentally ill prisoners. This campaign needs to be publicized loudly and widely and fast to correspond with the legislative hearings in March (although our public events will extend throughout 2008.) We need you right now.

WHY YOU SHOULD COME: Based on the people who have confirmed--artists, activists, educators, family members, ex-offenders, concerned citizens (most people fit more than one of those categories)--this promises to be a very exciting meeting! With snacks! If you are at all interested in being involved, this is the time to find out how--there are so many ways that you (and your organization) can make a difference.

"YEAR TEN" ORGANIZING MEETING
Tuesday, JANUARY 22, 6:30pm-8pm
Jane Adams Hull House, UPSTAIRS
University of Illinois at Chicago, 800 S. Halsted Street

Close to CTA blue line--1.5 blocks south of the UIC/Halsted stop (from Halsted street exit).
Convenient to the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) and the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90). Parking is available at Halsted and Taylor Street garage or there is metered parking across the street. Link to map: www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/newdesign/map.html

JOIN THE YEAR TEN CAMPAIGN!I

On March 8, 1998, the new Closed Maximum Security Facility (CMAX) at Tamms, Illinois received its first prisoners. Today, approximately 270 prisoners are warehoused at Tamms—some who have been there since the day it opened—in permanent, solitary confinement.

To mark Tamms' tenth year of operation, the "Year Ten" campaign has initiated a program of artistic, educational, cultural and political events to bring public attention to the conditions at Tamms. We, along with the prisoners and their families, ask the people of Illinois to join us in protesting the IDOC’s misguided and inhumane policies, and in calling for legislation to end the torture of permanent solitary confinement.

These efforts are part of a long-term political strategy to achieve humane treatment for the men at Tamms. We expect to have legislative hearings about Tamms in March. But our legislators can only act in response to significant public outcry. We invite you to participate in our upcoming events, and get involved in Year Ten organizing. We need your voice, your contacts, your skills, and we need your action! Come to the next organizing meeting on Tuesday, January 22 at the Jane Adams Hull House, 800 S. Halsted Ave.


____________________EXCERPTS FROM TAMMS PRISONERS_______________

I have been here in Tamms Supermax Prison since Sept. 3, 1998. I was transferred here from Menard Correctional Center for supposedly trying to organize a mass-hunger strike to protest the living conditions in that prison. Even tho I denied and refuted those allegations, all it took for the administration here in Tamms to find me guilty of the charges was for one inmate, a confidential informant, to lie on me. There was no proof or evidence of me trying to organize a mass hunger strike. The administration simply went by the confidential informant’s story and ran with it. And it is well known that confidential informants are not reliable. They lie to get preferential treatment or to get transfer to a prison close to their home town.

Since September 3, 1998, this is where I have remain. When I arrived here in Tamms I had just turned 22 years old. I couldn’t understand why I was sent down here. At the time I had only been in the Department of Corrections for 4 years. And in those 4 years that I was in general population I had never committed anything serious to be placed here in Tamms. Sure, I was little immature and sure, I caught a few tickets for violating rules. However, none were serious violations. Nowhere in my D.O.C. history record will you find a ticket of me causing bodily harm to another inmate. Nowhere in my D.O.C. history record will you find a ticket of me carrying a weapon. Nowhere in my D.O.C. record will you find a ticket of me participating in any gang riots or disputes. Nowhere in my D.O.C. history record will you find a ticket of me doing drugs, selling drugs or buying drugs. Yet, they got me here as one of the worst of the worst. --Alejandro Villazana #B55826

I’m in a cell 23 to 24 hours a day by myself, no phone calls, no school. Law library have outdated books. Tamms has made it hard for family and friends to visit, the state spend more money on us then they do other inmates that’s not in a supermax. But still the state don’t have money for schools, health care and other poor working peoples. Inmates that’s not in a supermax, the state pay $23, 000 a year for each inmate, in Tamms they spend $60,000 for each inmates.

Now understand that it’s important to have family or friends to visit, it help us to stay sane. The State don’t respect the humanity here at Tamms, at Tamms, there are no educational programs if a man want to learn how to read, too bad, there are no jobs, if a man want to keep himself occupied doing something productive, too bad, there’s are no social service to really help you. If a man wan to kick his drug addictions, too bad. Theirs is not legal assistance, if a man was wrongfully convicted, too bad, there are no even religious services except for T.V. and if you don’t have no T.V., too bad. If a man what to search for God, he is on his own.

Not all of us here are in the exact same situation, but not one of us is exempt from somehow experiencing those very same conditions. Every prisoner here at Tamms is in an uphill battle to maintain their mental, physical and spiritual stability, no matter if they choose to acknowledge it or not, living under these animalistic conditions has been proven to dehumanize an individual to the point where there is no value to life. That’s why we have guys mutilating their bodies and doing other unimaginable acts that only a severely disturbed mind could even conceive. Tamms is a modern day dungeon. Don’t get me wrong, inmates are incarcerated for laws they have broken, but not one of us deserves the treatment and isolation we get here at Tamms, even animal rights activists fight more for an abused dog than they do for an abused inmate. I seen same men go insane because they couldn’t take it no more. It’s sad, but I’m holding on with the help of God. --Eddie Adams #A90087