[Peace] Action still possible on behalf of closing Tamms Super Max Prison in Illinois

Mon Dec 3 03:11:02 UTC 2012

Action still possible on behalf of closing Tamms Super Max Prison in Illinois
[Thank you  Laurie Jo Reynolds for passing along this new information.]

Now what we all can do:

Write  to Representative Naomi Jakobsson
<naomijakobsson at mail.com>tonight or Monday and tell her that you hope
she votes this
coming week against the veto  override to the Governor's closing
orders for Tamms so that the closings can
proceed and the overstaffing at Tamms could be used to correct the
understaffing at the minimum security
prisons. There is also the matter of the $7 million each month that is
being used in
keeping prisons and work camps open that need to be closed, money that
the rest of the system sorely needs.

Or you can call her at her Capitol Office in Springfield. They are in
the veto session now. (217) 558-1009
Barbara Kessel

208 guards, 138 inmates: Still, Tamms staff racks up $884K in OT for year
 December 1, 2012

By GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER — Belleville News-Democrat

There are more guards than inmates at the largely empty Tamms
Correctional Center in Alexander County.

Tamms has 208 guards and supervisors in its maximum-security unit, or
C-max, to handle 138 prisoners, for a security-staff-to-inmate ratio
of 1.5-to-1. At Alcatraz in the 1940s, the ratio was 1-to-3, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

The Tamms security staff also clocked at least $884,000 in overtime
since about this time last year, according to state payroll records
for a one-year period ending Nov. 12. Overtime was accrued despite the
fact that inmates in the solitary confinement supermax unit are held
in their cells 23 hours a day and have no contact with other
prisoners.

In addition, there are 16 food supervisors earning an average of
$71,600 a year working at Tamms. That's the same number of food
supervisors as at the Pontiac Correctional Center, which houses around
1,700 maximum- and medium-security inmates.

In all, there are 300 employees for the entire Tamms operation, which
includes an adjacent minimum-security camp with 89 inmates and about
13 guards, with an annual payroll of approximately $18.7 million,
according to figures from the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The staffing levels at Tamms C-max surprised several state legislators
who said they were unaware of the number of security staff and food
supervisors and stated they will ask the legislature to look into the
costs.

State Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, asked, "Who's running things down
there? I never heard about any of this."

A national prison consultant said the Tamms maximum security staffing
numbers are more than are needed.

"There's a lot of folks taking advantage of this situation. This
(staffing level) is excessive," said Tim Gravette, a retired associate
warden with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and a Louisiana-based
incarceration consultant.

"What you have is a union issue," he said. "These numbers sure look
excessive to me. There are more correctional officers than are needed
for security."

Earlier this year, Quinn put Tamms on a list of state facilities
targeted for closure to save the state money during the budget crisis.
An Alexander County judge has temporarily blocked that move.

"To call this facility inefficient is putting it mildly," said Quinn
spokeswoman Brooke Anderson.

The News-Democrat published a series of stories in 2009 entitled
"Trapped in Tamms" that highlighted civil rights abuses at the prison
in deep Southern Illinois, including holding mentally ill prisoners in
solitary confinement for more than a decade. The governor ordered
reforms after the BND's investigative series.

Today, the prison population at Tamms is about half what it was when
the News-Democrat first reported on the prison.

At the current 138 C-max inmate population level, it costs
aproximately $85,000 just to guard one maximum-security prisoner per
year excluding overtime. This is 32 percent higher than the estimated
$64,000-per-inmate annual cost for all operational expenditures at
Tamms released by IDOC -- a figure based on prior inmate populations
of about 240 for the maximum-security unit and about 175 for the
minimum-security unit.

Most Illinois prisons have a per-inmate annual cost of between $15,000
and $24,000. It costs about $26.3 million per year to operate both
units at Tamms, according to IDOC.

The total cost for medical and mental health services provided by an
outside vendor was not available. Nor was a total available for the
cost of outside hospitalization needed on numerous occasions when
inmates held for lengthy periods in solitary self-mutilated with bits
of metal or glass.

The prison employs nine registered nurses, five practical nurses, a
medical director, an optometrist and a dentist and three mental health
employees. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., is the medical and mental
health services vendor.

The current low number of inmates at Tamms resulted from a judge's
order this year to freeze transfers until a lawsuit between the
guards' union and the governor's office is resolved. A hearing in the
lawsuit is set for Dec. 10 in Cook County Circuit Court.

Quinn wants to close Tamms as a budgetary measure. The guards' union
-- the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees --
contends that closing the prison would make conditions unsafe at other
prisons. Tamms holds violent inmates, including several who have
killed or injured prison staff.

"This is about safety, not about jobs. It was never about jobs," union
spokesman Anders Lindall has said.

Steven Bierig, a state arbitrator agreed upon by both sides in the
lawsuit, ruled Oct. 27 after hearing weeks of testimony that it would
not cause increased danger to move Tamms inmates to solitary
confinement cells at other prisons. Bierig concluded that the closure
of Tamms and several other prison units, including the Dwight
Correctional Center for women, can legally proceed.

'TWO-THIRDS EMPTY PRISON'

While questions concerning safety have dominated the recent
controversy over the proposed closure of Tamms, specific costs to run
the state's only supermax lockup have not received wide attention.

Haine, the senator from Alton, recently voted with the Senate majority
to override Quinn's veto and restore state funding to keep Tamms open
-- a mostly symbolic vote that the governor can ignore.

"I wished I had known about this before the vote," Haine said after
learning staffing costs from a reporter.

"It sounds absolutely ludicrous. I wasn't aware of this," said Rep.
Jim Sacia, R-Freeport, a member of the House Judiciary II and
Appropriations Committee.

"I don't know why there would be 16 food supervisors at Tamms," said
Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R- Addison, a member of the Prison Reform
Committee. "We need to look into these staffing levels."

Meal preparation at Tamms consists mostly of food that is not cooked
on the premises but comes in cans or packages from a Florida
wholesaler, according to surveys by a prisoner advocacy group.

Laurie Jo Reynolds, head of the Tamms Year Ten Committee that has long
opposed the solitary-only prison on humanitarian grounds, criticized
the isolation that extends even to education at Tamms, where
instructors conduct GED classes through the mail.

"Welcome to the AFSCME prison state: 16 food supervisors microwave
packaged meals, two full-time GED instructors see no students, and 13
nurses" monitor men on suicide watch due to sensory deprivation," she
said. "Meanwhile, the full security staff guards a two-thirds empty
prison."

PRISON STAFF BY THE NUMBERS

The Tamms C-max security force of 208 consists of 172 guards, 24
lieutenants, eight sergeants and four shift commanders.

Even though communal religious services are not held at Tamms, the
prison employs a chaplain at $74,650 per year, according to state
payroll records.

There are six counselors who earn an average of $70,000 a year to
counsel inmates, including at least 28 who are in their 14th year of
solitary confinement.

The payroll also includes a prison laundry manager who is paid $72,912
per year, two electricians at $84,300 each, a plumber who has been
paid $90,494 since November 2011, and a carpenter at $68,138 a year.

Warden Gregory S. Lambert earns $93,732 a year and his executive
secretary has been paid $54,312 so far this year. The administrative
office is staffed by 10 office associates.

Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk at bnd.com and 239-2625.
Contact reporter Beth Hundsdorfer at bhundsdorfer at bnd.com and
239-2570.

Read more here:
http://www.bnd.com/2012/12/01/2413741/despite-high-staff-level-tamms.html#storylink=cpy
--
Lois Ahrens * The Real Cost of Prisons Project * www.realcostofprisons.org *

--
James Kilgore
Research Scholar
Center for African Studies
University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
check the website for my new book: http://freedomneverrests.com

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