In July, Fox News reported on a “mass shakedown” at the Tamms Correctional Facility in Illinois. The subject of search and seizure was not the prisoners and illegal contraband; it was the guards and administrative staff. The shakedowns did not occur early in the morning as the workers arrived at Tamms, but in the evening before they clocked out—strange because the fear is usually of what will be brought into prisons, not what could be taken out.
So why the unconventional shakedown?
The Fox article reveals that on July 19, an email was sent to 10 southern Illinois prison wardens from a Department of Corrections administrator, with a message to begin the shakedowns. Coincidentally, the email time stamp reads as being sent just 18 minutes after a dozen prison workers began a public forum in the state capitol to complain about Illinois prison conditions and the governor’s plans to close several prisons.
The campaign comes in a season when Governor Quinn has been pushing the closure of several state facilities in the name of spending cuts. Tamms was scheduled to close this month. However, Fox reports that prison workers have shown heavy resistance, citing increased violence if now isolated gang members are reunited with their fellow members in other prisons.
The searches also follow a publicly released report covering the potential destinations of some of the would-be transported Tamms inmates. The report was based on an internal document from the DOC.
The department of corrections has failed to give any other explanation for the searches other than that it is within their authority to do so. The executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Henry Baker, said in a statement that, “We have no indication that there is any valid reason for these searches, rather, the tactics and timing suggest they are part of a retaliatory effort by the administration to intimidate whistleblowers.”
Only days after the workers union public forum at the Capitol, Illinois press reported on a memo that singled out nine Tamms inmates for transfer to out of state prisons.
The transfers have been temporarily halted after Alexander County Judge Charles Cavaness complied with the workers’ union request for time to negotiate. The governor’s office has maintained the stance that Quinn did not directly order the investigation, but has refused to release a statement on whether or not they were informed of the investigation prior to it taking place. Quinn has also dismissed questions about whether the police visit was intended to harass or intimidate workers.
The Illinois correctional system is already 15,000 inmates over capacity, yet Gov. Quinn continues what has been called “reckless reshuffling” of inmates, and insists on consolidating the facilities even more.
In the days following the first shakedowns, journalists’ requests to visit the prisons under investigation have been consistently denied by Quinn. His reason for rejecting the press: “Prisons aren’t country clubs,” adding later that prisons don’t exist to be “visited and looked at.” These comments prompted the Northwest Herald to ask the question, “Whose tax dollars pay for these facilities? Are there other state institutions that journalists shouldn’t be allowed to tour because their primary purpose isn’t to be visited and looked at?”
Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford has expressed disappointment in Quinn’s recent behavior, saying it is “uncalled for and out of touch.” Is it not the public’s job to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate living conditions for prisoners of their own society?
Either there is a disparity between Gov. Quinn’s governmental philosophy and what the public expects, or there is something the administration wants to hide inside Tamms.